Martha Marcy May Marlene

A massive hit at Sundance, among the critics and audiences alike. This set the torch alight for Elizabeth Olsen's career. She certainly did give an incredible performance! But unfortunately for me the film fell short of all the hype and was somewhat disappointing. But the idea for this film was so good! So what went wrong?

The whole premise of a girl escaping a cult and adjusting to life outside of it, sounds very cool and has the makings to be a n excellent film. Which this was not. Don't get me wrong, the story was interesting and some bits of it were really interesting but it just wasn't enough!

The only bit that had me going 'this is a good film!' was the bit when John Hawkes's character Patrick played the song he had written for the main character. The song was suprisingly good and had a chill about it that had be glued to the screen and mesmerised by the lyrics. That unfortunately was about it.

The acting from John Hawkes is just as good as Olsen's but unlike her, he has little screen time for the audience to understand his character and motivations for leading the cult. The whole film is like this, very little back story, which can be a good thing, but in this case it left the audience in too much mystery.
If you are a fan of unresolved plots and endings then this is the film for you. But for me it was too unresolved and left me needing more in order to say that this film was as good as the critics say it is. It is different and quite creepy, which is good but it just needed more! Even the dialogue needed more, it wasn't like Drive in which the dialogue style was used to make it unique, it just needed more and to be faster. Some more speeches from John Hawkes would be nice, then even the audience might be able to see why the cult is so appealing to these people. Because at the moment I feel as if the cult was one where you go to if you hate the rich and want to become a sex slave. Not so appealing if you ask me!

Overall it was an ok film that could have done with more to become the amazing film I was wishing for!

If you haven't watched my short film you can here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y55YBAO0-sg&list=UUesEnIRGd70hqWRPjf4Vyug&feature=plcp

Over the Easter holiday I will most likely see lots of films so I will review the all at once in a post at the end of the month!

Thanks for reading!!