Here we have a movie about deprogramming and manipulation through a cult, or more specifically, a dual narrative simultaneously showing both the joining and the leaving of a Manson Family-esque group living on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, which may or may not have perpetrated a heinous crime. The key to Sean Durkin’s assured, if somewhat unsatisfying, debut is the unreliable nature of its central character’s recollections, played with impressive skill by another debutante, Elizabeth Olsen, who through the devices of the screenplay’s structure gives us her memories of the cult as a set of fractured, scattered flashbacks which may or may not be entirely real.
At first glance it’s idyllic, this community of back-to-the-earth young people, led by the charismatic Patrick, played with creepy perfection by John Hawkes; he seems like a benevolent figure, espousing hackneyed shtick about life, the universe and the importance of “letting people in” in order to break down the barriers created by conventional society, and then inveigling the female members into predictably sexual submissiveness. Never once is the term “cult” used in the film, but of course that is what we are meant to perceive is going on here. This not using of the word gives you an idea what’s going on with the filmmaker too. It’s a purposefully ambiguous movie, on the surface purporting not to be judgemental, but in its heart, judging itself to be slightly more clever than it actually is.
Which is not to say it isn’t well done or engaging. The carefully storyboarded cuts between Olsen’s hazy past and her equally dislocated present – as she tries to re-integrate into her sister Lucy’s world (where Olsen’s character is still known by her birth name, Martha) while constantly ignoring middle-class taboos, like swimming naked in the lake (how shocking) or walking in on her sister and husband having sex and climbing into bed with them (slightly more unsettling) while battling the increasingly paranoiac flashbacks of her escaped life as Marcy, or May, or Marlene – these are consummately done, showcasing Durkin’s obvious enjoyment in creating pleasing cinematographic fluidity. The multiple names are a common trick in cults, to fracture the personality and render it pliable. As a title for a film, however, it has the effect of making it possibly the most unmarketable label in cinema history. Hats of to Durkin for getting that one past the investors.
Durkin has created a truly impressive debut, but it would certainly have benefited from a little more storytelling and a little less satisfaction in its art house credentials. Blurring the lines between the correctness of both worlds, the world of the cult and the world of “conventional society” is fine, but it’s a little obvious. Of course cults have things that are good as well as bad, otherwise no-one would join them. Or course conventional society has things that are bad as well as good too; otherwise it would have disintegrated into anarchy years ago. That’s the real problem with Martha, Marcy, May Marlene: it never really tells us anything we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves without ever watching the film; and as a character study it’s only mildly diverting, rather than essential.
Luckily Elizabeth Olsen does still manage to keep everything interesting enough as the young woman at its heart, whose psychological damage, both before, during and after her experiences with the group, leave more questions about the veracity of what we’re seeing than answers. What the audience is left with is an atmospheric, tantalising glimpse of enigmas and suggestions, but no clear cut idea of whether the whole thing was actually an exercise in nothing, on both sides of the camera. And yet another example of how the ambiguous ending can, in the wrong hands, be highly irritating, especially when it feels distinctly as though Durkin knew exactly how it should have ended, then just decided not to show it.
Film Review in Partnership with the Duke of Yorks Cinema
-Keith Tomlinson-
