Martha Marcy May Marlene(2011)- User Reviews

Having heard so many good things about this film and Elizabeth Olsen's performance I attended expecting alot. Boy, was I disappointed. This is a muddled mess from start to finish, with not one sympathetic or interesting character to been seen in an hour and 45 minutes. You never find out what compelled a seemingly "nice" "normal" girl to join a cult in the first place. The relationship between her and her sister is non-convincing, and frankly although the sister Lucy feigns concern towards Martha, I didn't buy it, nor did I really care. The sister herself is so disagreeable and shrill, I thought Martha was better off in the cult. The screenplay is also disagreeable and frankly depressing and morose. The premise slim at best. As I write this review I still don't know what the message of the film was? Was it an allegory about soldiers being "drafted" into the service only to find out that the armed forces is not all that it's cracked up to be? Is it about the "post traumatic stress disorder" that soldiers experience after returning home. By witholding a "back story" for all of the main characters involved, we are deprived of any connection with them and their so-called plight. All we, the audience come away with, is a magled, muddled mess and about two hours of sheer boredom.