Last night, I finally gotten around to watching, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, starring Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes. I was very impressed with the movie. It was definitely one of the best dramas of 2011, and I was very moved throughout the whole film.

It tells the story, of a young girl named, Martha, who disappeared from her sister Lucy’s home for a few years. Where has Martha gone after all these years? Well, Martha has been living with a hippie like cult that was led by Patrick (John Hawkes). She has been living with the cult under a different name. This cult had other young women living with him. These women were forced to help work around the house, and of course, the women were also raped and abused by these men that were in this cult.

Martha escaped from this cult, ran away, and went back to her sister, Lucy’s home, who lived with her boyfriend Ted. As the film goes along, her past would come back to haunt her and would make her a different person. The film would show flashbacks of her cult years as the present time would tell the main story.

Enough with the plot, on with my thoughts. This is a pretty good psychological drama. It can get pretty depressing, dark, and scary at times. It almost makes you want to feel sorry for this girl. The film wants to make you decide if she is crazy and insane or not.

Elizabeth Olsen did a great job in this film, and I thought she should have gotten an Oscar nod for this role. Of course, John Hawkes did another impressive performance. John Hawkes, an actor most famous for the TV show, “Eastbound & Down” for HBO, but he became a more recognizable actor when he did the film, “Winter’s Bone”, which he did get Oscar nominated for. I liked John’s character in this film more than his role in “Winter’s Bone”. John did not play a villain in “Winter’s Bone”, he was the good guy in that one, but John was the villain, in “Martha Marcy”.

You should definitely check this movie out. I liked the film a lot! Buy it or rent it.

Kev