Martha Marcy May Marlene
With weather.com saying that today would be a cloudy, rainy day in Austin I decided to stay in with the pups and rent some movies I've been waiting to see. Naturally, I went to my go to spot for movie Vulcan Video and had to grab a gyro at Tino's...
[side note: Vulcan Video is awesome and I have yet to find a movie I want to see that they don't carry...]
I went in with the specific purpose of renting Martha Marcy May Marlene and was pleased when I spotted it! I will be honest that my motivations for wanting to watch this movie can be listed in the following: Elizabeth Olsen, "psychological drama", & cults. I mean, c'mon that screams BAILEY.
The film was good. It was really good. I liked the way that it was shot in the present and goes back in to scenes from the past. The choice of actors was also really good [it definitely did not hurt that I was surprised to see Hugh Dancy! *swoon*] Elizabeth Olsen did an outstanding job as the lead role and I was very impressed to learn that it was her first "real" acting role. She is gorgeous and looks exactly like Ashley [we are on a first-name basis here...]. John Hawkes is already a great actor and did a wonderful job as the "charismatic cult leader" [as taken from IMDB].
Overall, the film did leave plenty of questions to the imagination. I wanted to know so badly how the lead character became a member of the cult as well as if some of her delusions throughout the film were real. I was very interested in the other members of the cult and I wish the film had gone more in to their personalities and stories. The ending was, while puzzling, well placed. I found myself saying aloud, "What?! Are you kidding me?! After stewing with that feeling for a few minutes I came to realize that it ended well. Unexpected? Yes. But well.
*Question for thought: Am I the only one who, after seeing a movie that leaves you with questions, almost immediately IMDBs it looking for answers? That's probably just me being a weirdo....
Final thoughts: Rent it, glad I didn't see it in the theater, Elizabeth Olsen is going to be a star.
-B
