Martha Marcy May Marlene

Director: Sean Durkin
Screenwriters: Sean Durkin

Institute History

Description

Haunted by painful memories and suffering from increasing anxiety, Martha escapes an abusive cult and returns home to live with her older sister, Lucy, and Lucy’s husband, Ted. With no other family to lean on, Martha tries desperately to assimilate into Ted and Lucy’s upper-middle-class lifestyle. But nightmares of the cult that brainwashed her into living as Marcy May prevent her from connecting with the only people who may be able to save her. As Martha’s isolation grows, her severe paranoia escalates. Ultimately, she descends into a dizzying state of panic as the growing fear that she is being hunted grips her every move.
Giving a breakout performance as Martha (Marcy May), Elizabeth Olsen subtly commands the screen in this stunning follow-up to writer/director Sean Durkin’s 2010 Cannes award-winning short, Mary Last Seen.


(Archives note: see also Sean Durkin's Meet The Artist interview on our YouTube Channel.)

— David Courier

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

Credits

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