This film which really depicts life in a Cult and the programming that accompanies it. In order to fit into a cult one cannot question anything - when she escapes the enormous impact it has had on her emerges, it leads you through her emotions and how she can't adapt to life outside the cult nor did she fully embrace life inside it, she is a boat without a sail stuck in the middle of an emotionless sea, she feels she can't fit anywhere or that the world can't adapt to her even worst she can't communicate how she truly feels. The relationship with her sister is very revealing yet both have build a large wall between them that her older sister wants to tear down. Martha has different understanding of how life works a reason why she let some things slide in the cult (the sex, the lifestyle, because it was all explained to her as something normal), how sometimes that lifestyle was comforting and why other things were horrible and bothered her, and the subtext was so good, and disturbing, particularly when she says "there's other ways of living", giving a direct critic to her sister and her husband and showing that she wasn't fond of there lifestyle choices and leading to her family can't understand her behavior and labeling her as an outsider.MMMM had real potential and it made Elizabeth Olsens careers but sadly the characters weren't better developed and more backstory wasn't given, I'm not saying I have to be spoon fed the hole story in order to understand it but Wouldn't it be fascinating to know where Martha encountered Patrick's group for the first time? and how she was convinced to join them, Wouldn't you love to know more about Martha's home life growing up and why it compelled her to join a the cult? This film should've focused more on the characters motivations and some background to it.Yes the story is broken from modern stand point in that it isn't a linear progression. The way they laid the past and the present together and allowed them to twist together makes the movie. it's not a thriller, its telling the life of a young women and her lack personality, it was a bit drab and unconvincing. It was watchable. The ending was like they ran out of film stock...or the director thought "I'll be clever by having an abrupt non-ending and the audience will figure the ending for themselves it's not like that's my job ". But it wasn't clever, just incomplete and even if it was meant like that we wanted some sort of closure, all the ending dose it feels cheap.

This is a title that dangles promise only to snatch it away at the last moment. I like that the director treats us the audience as Patrick treats his cult members, promise us something that is never really delivered on but is piggy backed by further promise until the actual realisation that we have been had comes too late.And that is it in my book, this film is a con in several ways:1. I can see why the critics loved this film because it is enough of a blank canvas for them to paint any picture they want on it, and boy did they go crazy with their crayolas. Yes Elizabeth Olson can be painted to appear disturbed, when actually all she does is nibble food swim have a few memories and kick her brother in law. There is no real substance to her character, so the disturbance we witness is that of a promising actor attempting to breathe life into an empty shell. 2. The good old "I did my research and found something intriguing and unique" flam. If Dunkin did so much research why then did he choose to dump us with a clichéd rehash of the family? This is another repuke of Charles Manson, and a dull and unconvincing one at that. There really was no substance, there was no creep factor, there was no psychological tension; but critics and movie land being what it is they do like their emperor's new clothes.3 The ending. I have just sat and read a psychologists review of the ending that was nearly as long as the film itself, and almost as irrelevant. The ending is not some great psychological mystery as to the state of Martha's mind, no, it is simply the inevitable consequence of a film without substance. There is nothing really happening in the rest of the movie so how can anything happen at the end?But that is where the real con and genius of Dunkin lies; because I like the majority stayed till the end thinking that something was going to be there. Well done sir, there are not many modern directors who could deceive their audience into sitting through almost 2 hours of nothing for the slightest chance of something at the end only to find, well, nothing.

I came across this the other night / early morning when I was channel surfing and from the TV description of it it sounded interesting so I thought I'd give it a go as I like a good thriller / drama (good being the operative word!).Admittedly, I missed the beginning and was tired at the time and on the verge of dozing off anyway, unless I had been watching something incredibly riveting, and this movie was so NOT incredibly riveting that I did actually doze off after the first few hopeful minutes of watching it. The reviewed who likened it to waiting for a kettle to boil for a couple of hours only to realise it wasn't plugged in hit the nail on the head - this movie is so turgid, slow moving and dull it was enough to put me into a catatonic trance. I tried in vain to keep my eyes open in the hope that it would pick up and become more intriguing but it just plodded on and on and sleep took over! I did wake up after about 15 minutes or so but the film was still dragging on lethargically so I decided sleep was much more important than this nonsense and went to bed.I really can't recommend this movie at all from what I saw of it - it's just bland, boring and dragged on and on and on. It's the kind of movie that potentially could have been good but the storyline was just too vapid and unlikely. What a washout!

With "Martha Marcy May Marlene", there's a pervasive sense of foreboding right out of the gate. I really wanted to know what happened to Martha at that cult farm. But the bigger question that nagged throughout the movie (which is never really answered) is what drove her there in the first place? That's what was so frustrating because the movie offered very little in the way of answers. And the flip-flopping between past and present got old rather quickly. Alas, aside from Elizabeth Olsen's terrifically haunting performance, it's the frustration that sticks with me more than anything else. While this movie is great at setting the eerie vibe and leaving one completely unnerved, it's not one that I particularly want to revisit.5/10