Martha Marcy May Marlene

I enjoyed this film. It is well-made and thoughtful. The film starts with a young woman, Martha, played by Elizabeth Olsen, fleeing through the woods. She is escaping a backwoods commune that she has been living in. She is very distressed and is collected by her sister, Lucy, played by Sarah Paulson, and goes to live with her. Her sister is living a middle class life with her new British husband. The film cuts between Martha's life with her sister and flashbacks to the life she had on the commune.

The commune has its own belief system and new members are indoctrinated by the strong consensus of the members already there. The commune cultivates crops and dabbles in crime. There are many more women than men and the principal man, Patrick, played by John Hawkes, helps himself to the women as he sees fit. They feel honoured when they are chosen.

Martha, who is clearly a dropout, tries to adapt to her sister's life.

This is an honest, good and very well made film. I nevertheless thought that it has some shortcomings. Patrick's character is charming and devious. He is played by John Hawks who was previously in Winters Bone. Hawkes seems to be making a career of playing backwards types. If I had made the film I would've cast someone who is less in the ready-made mould of this type of character. The commune has all the characteristics - bizarre beliefs, amorality, sexual freedom - that someone like me, who knows nothing about it, has been led to assume that they have from various television programs. So nothing fresh there. While living with Lucy Martha behaves in ways that Lucy and her husband can't understand and are sometimes offended by. There are rows and Lucy tries hard to be kind and to accommodate her sister. I did feel that more could have been made of the contrast between Martha's alternative view of the world and Lucy and her husband's conventional middle-class view.

The film stopped abruptly and unexpectedly, leaving me unsatisfied.

The film is very well made with excellent acting and outstandingly good cinematography. I did wonder whether the things that happened after the film ended may not have been more interesting than the things that happened during it.