Day 182: Martha Marcy May Marlene

A young woman escapes a cult and is taken in by her sister who she hasn’t seen or spoken to in 2 years. She is finding it difficult separating her life now and the time she spent in the cult, and it causes her to become more paranoid.

The film continually splits between Martha’s (Elizabeth Olsen) time now and her memories of then. We see how she accepted the things that happened and how she became one of them. Early on during her stay with them, she wakes up to find the leader raping her. Afterwards, one of the other women tells her that it was a beautiful thing that happened and Martha seems to accept it. And later she takes one of the new girls to the leader and drugs her, so the same thing will happen to her. Some of them go into the homes of rich people during the night and steal things, and she joins them. It seems like she enjoys feeling like she belongs and ‘finding her role in the family.’ But after she witnesses a murder, she decides to escape.

Martha calls her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), and she comes straight away to pick her up. She hasn’t seen her in 2 years and she is obviously worried about what happened to her but Martha doesn’t want to talk about it. Lucy and her husband are quite well off and they have a nice house. During her time in the cult, all of the members shared clothes and grew their own food and shared in the everyday chores. Martha can’t stop herself from judging the abundant wealth that Lucy has and she makes it clear that she thinks it’s not the right way to live. She doesn’t want to return to the cult, however, and she becomes increasingly more paranoid and believes that they are coming for her. The way the film ends, we’re not sure if she has really managed to escape or if she’ll be taken back.

We’re not given much information on Martha’s life prior to the cult but it seems like she was very unhappy. Her relationship with Lucy is very tense. Lucy feels guilty about not being there for Martha when she was younger and is trying to make up for it now by taking care of her. Martha is terrified of being alone and when Lucy tells her that she’s going to take her to get help, she lashes out. The lack of background we’re given was quite interesting because it allows you to make up your own. We don’t know what led her to the cult but we can fill in the details, perhaps even considering what it would take for us to end up in that place ourselves.

7/10