The Sundance Film Festival has over the years acted as the big break for a generation of young American filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderbergh. While it has in many ways abandoned its Indie roots for more mainstream fare, it is still a respected venue to launch a career. Today's flick of the day is a winner of the Grand Jury Prize at last year's festival and the directing award for first time director Sean Durkin.
Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of the world conquering Olsen twins, stars as the Martha of the title, a young woman who as the films opens is attempting to escape from the cult where she has lived for the past two years isolated from her family. She makes contact with her well to do sister and architect husband and soon finds herself ensconced in their lakeside summer house. However all is not well, Martha is haunted by her experiences while under the roof of malevolent leader Patrick, played by a superb John Hawkes surpassing his breakout performance in 2010's Winter's Bone. As her behaviour becomes more erratic, she pushes her hosts to breaking point and we learn in every more horrifying flashbacks the nature of her captivity and sexual servitude. All the while the tension mounts and Martha's paranoia about being dragged back to her old life becomes all too real.
Shot in a superb naturalistic style, this is a psychological thriller of the highest order. Durkin's choice of soft lighting and close shots give the film a dreamlike quality. This reinforces the haunting nature of the story and specifically the flashback scenes to Martha's time in the cult. Elizabeth Olsen has justly been lauded for her performance which manages to capture both the difficulty of adapting to life on the outside and the unsettling fear that everything is about to come crashing down around her. This sense of dread pervades the entire film and creates a tension that is never fully resolved.
If it is Olsen's performance which carries the film then it is John Hawkes which moves it to another level. He has created a character that echoes real life self styled messiahs like Charles Manson and David Koresh. Every scene he enters is corrupted by his oily charm which only later reveals itself to be hiding a murderous rage. Perhaps the most chilling scene is the gang's attempted home invasion which is surely influenced by the actions of Manson's Family. The eerie calm before the storm is deeply unsettling and it is a bravura performance. Saying that I do not want to take away from Elizabeth Olsen. She is a natural talent that is surely on the way to bigger things.
An excellent debut from Sean Durkin, this is one of the best films I have seen so far this year. All in all, a definite must see, this is an excellent thriller which makes the most of two fine performances from the leads.
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