Synopsis
After several years of living with a cult, Martha finally escapes and calls her estranged sister, Lucy, for help. Martha finds herself at the quiet Connecticut home Lucy shares with her new husband, Ted, but the memories of what she experienced in the cult make peace hard to find. As flashbacks continue to torment her, Martha fails to shake a terrible sense of dread, especially in regard to the cult's manipulative leader.
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Cast
- Elizabeth OlsenMartha
- Christopher AbbottMax
- Brady CorbetWatts
- Hugh DancyTed
- Maria DizziaKatie
- Julia GarnerSarah
- John HawkesPatrick
- Louisa KrauseZoe
- Sarah PaulsonLucy
- Adam David ThompsonBartender
Recommendations
- 91
IndieWire
Like "Afterschool," Durkin's first feature explores the dangerous extremes of youth vulnerability. - 90
Boxoffice Magazine
Martha Marcy May Marlene enters so richly into psychological horror it recalls those disturbing dramatizations of Jonestown that were big on TV in the '80s. - 85
Movieline
Olsen's performance is restrained but not tentative; you could say the same for the movie around it. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Elizabeth Olsen steps onto the radar as a seriously accomplished actor in this mesmerizing drama, which also marks an assured feature debut for writer-director Sean Durkin. - 80
Variety
The largely elliptical script feels a few drafts shy of focus, with the thriller elements undermining the juicier questions of why one joins a cult and how life can go back to normal later. - 80
The New Yorker
What the writer and director, Sean Durkin, delivers here is not a cult film at all but something more troubled and insidious - a film about a cult. - 80
Time Out
A lesser movie might hammer home the idea that the cult squashes Martha's sense of self. This distinctive and haunting effort implies something much scarier: that there is no self to start with. - 80
Village Voice
A deft, old-school psychological thriller (or perhaps horror film) that relies mainly on the power of suggestion and memories of hippie cult crazies.
