Martha Marcy May Marlene

I am aware that last week I tweeted and posted on my Facebook that I was headed downtown to Varsity Cinemas to see an advanced screening of Margin Call with Kevin Spacey.  My buddy had won the tickets through a Twitter contest and was emailed two tickets and I was to go with him.  We got down there and they had SOMEHOW gave away too many tickets to the film and we were offered tickets to an upcoming film called My Week with Marilyn.  Since we were down there, we decided to check out another movie titled Martha Marcy May Marlene. 

This gem is the breakout acting career for Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.  Her acting is considerably better than that of her sisters.  I feel like if someone heard that Elizabeth was the main actress in this movie, they would expect a lesser performance because of the strong shadowing arm of her old sisters larger career.  This was not the case. 

M,M,M,M is about Martha, a paranoid and clearly damaged woman who struggles to live with her sister and her husband after recently abandoning an abusive cult that she lived with for two years.  'Abusive' and 'cult' scared the crap out of me before this movie began, and although the film I don't think had intentions of being creepy, it creeped me out.  Martha is so clearly damaged by what happened during her stay with this group of people, that she is so oblivious to the textbook way of living with her 'normal' family. 

The film jumps back and forth between her time spent with the abusive cult to the present day of staying with her sister.  The film skips over from the present day into the past with extremely neat transitions.  When something is about to happen, say Martha is about to jump in the water off the end of her sister's dock, she will hit the water and the movie will skip back to her swimming with her apparent friends from the before said cult and focuses on that for some time.  The director shows us the way in which she lived before, and how she takes this method of living into the present day, and how the two worlds sort of clash. 

Although quite disturbing during some moments, I was blown away.  Great plot structure, easily understandable goings-on, fantastic acting, with a little creepiness and a cliff-hanger ending.  That spells great movie for me.  Only in select theaters though.  Be sure to find some showtimes near you.

Here's a disturbing trailer for an upcoming horror film.  Connect the cuts, man.