Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene is Elizabeth Olsen's first film, which debuted at Sundance 2011.

## Plot Summary

Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

## Synopsis

A 22-year-old woman named Martha has been living as a member of a cult in the Catskill Mountains for some time. The charismatic cult leader, Patrick, granted her the name Marcy May upon her initiation. Eventually, she decides to flee and escapes into the woods, arriving at a nearby town. In a diner, she is confronted by Watts, a cult member, who attempts to persuade her to return, but she refuses. Martha attempts to persuade her to return, but she refuses. Martha calls her sister Lucy, who picks her up and take her to the vacation lake house in Connecticut that she shares with her husband, a successful and wealthy architect named Ted.
While staying with Lucy and Ted at the lake house, Martha begins exhibiting strange behavior: swimming in a public lake naked, sleeping all the time, not eating, and arguing with her sister and brother-in-law about how to live, specifically arguing over the need for career and possessions. Lucy reveals she abandoned Martha and is now attempting to get her back into her life, and while she and Ted are also trying to have their own child. One night, Martha climbs into bed with Red and Lucy while they are having sex, angering Ted. Martha then attempts to phone the cult, but hangs up when one of the female members answers using the code name Marlene Lewis.
In flashbacks, Martha recalls a series of disturbing events that led to her escape the cult: while a member, she was drugged and raped by Patrick in an initiation ritual, while she later facilitated for other incoming female members. Patrick would later urge her to murder a cat, which she refused to do. She subsequently began participating in burglaries with the other cultists, one of which culminated in a struggle with a homeowner, in which the homeowner was brutally stabbed to death. Upon witnessing the murder, Martha had a mental breakdown before Patrick forcefully subdued her and berated her for her failing to follow the cult's ideals.
Lucy and Ted host a party at their home, inviting numerous friends from the city. Martha is visibly nervous during the gathering and has a psychotic episode when she misidentifies the bartender as a cult member, and needs to be sedated. Ted attempts to convince Lucy to send Martha to a psychiatric hospital, and idea Lucy rejects.
Later that night, Martha has a nightmare and a panic attack. Ted tries to help her, but Martha kicks him down the staircase. Lucy threatens to send Martha to a psychiatric hospital, to which Martha angrily reponds that Lucy will be a terrible mother. The next day, Lucy and Martha reconcile somewhat, and Martha goes swimming. She sees a man watching her across the shore and leaves the water. When Martha departs the house with Lucy and Ted, she looks behind from the backseat as a car follows them.

## Cast

* Elizabeth Olsen as Martha
* Christopher Abbot as Max
* Brady Corbet as Watts
* Hugh Dancy as Ted
* Maria Dizzia as Katie
* Julia Garner as Sarah
* John Hawkes as Patrick
* Louisa Krause as Zoe
* Sarah Paulson as Lucy
* Adam David Thompson as Bartender
* Allen McCullough as Man in Home #2
* Lauren Molina as Cult Member
* Louisa Braden Johnson as Cult Member
* Tobias Segal as Cult Member
* Gregg Burton as Man in Home #1
* Barbara Aragon as Extra
* Donald E. Benjamin as Extra
* Stacie A. Blaut as Extra
* Carole L. Brookman as Extra
* Heather Boyd as Extra
* Ellie Brooks as Extra
* Richard S. Clark Jr. as Extra
* Sal Crescitelli as Extra
* Josephine E DeSimone as Extra
* Jarret Featherbay as Extra
* Jill Halpern Steingart as Extra
* Jonathan Huppke as Extra
* Louis H. Jawitz as Extra
* Fred A. Kahn as Extra
* Heather M. Kayal as Party Guest

## Trivia

* Sean Durkin was looking for an unknown actress to play the role of Martha, which was the only role auditions were held for. Elizabeth Olsen auditioned twice for the role of Martha, and had to begin filming only two weeks after winning the part.
* Elizabeth Olsen and Sarah Paulsen invented together some background for the sisters' relationship. So every scene when they talked about their past, although it's vague on the script and for the viewer, Olsen and Paulsen knew exactly what Martha and Lucy are talking about.
* Shot over 20 days.
* Sean Durkin offered the role directly to Sarah Paulson, being a fan on her work on Studio 60.
* There are several references to the work of singer-songwriter, Jackson C. Frank. John Hawkes plays "Marcy's song" in the film, while "Marlene" is playing over the credits. It can be assumed that John Hawkes' character, Patrick, fabricated the names Marcy Marcy May and Marlene from these songs.
* "Mary last seen" the previous short film by Sean Durkin can be considered as a prequel to this film.
* On the Upstate New York set, Elizabeth Olsen spent more than a couple of days stripping down - sometimes to jump into an icy cold lake, sometimes to jump someone's bones. While Olsen admits that those nude scenes were a bit odd to film, she left no doubt that simply diving into the water was far more perilous than doffing her clothes in front of a camera. "The lake was daunting," she told to MTV News. "Some lake scenes we could only shoot once, because it was physically too cold for a body to be in there very long."
* The title refers to three of the names that the main character is known by over the course of the movie. "Martha" is the first name that her parents gave her. "Marcy May" is the name that Patrick gives her when she first enters the cult. "Marlene" is name all the cult's women are required to use when answering the compound's telephone (as stated in the long list of instructions written on the wall next to the telephone). The men are all required to call themselves "Michael" on the phone.
* There are quite a few similarities between Patrick's cult or Martha's story in this movie and the real-life Charles Manson "family" group. Among them: Manson, like Patrick, attracted a group of young and attractive but damaged young men and especially women to a remote, rural compound. Manson often renamed the members of his family--just as Patrick decided that Martha should be named "Marcy May," Manson dubbed Susan Atkins "Sadie Mae Glutz." Manson, like Patrick, required all or nearly all of the women to have sex with him as a prerequisite for "family" membership, and both the real Manson and the fictional Patrick encouraged everyone to have multiple sexual partners. Manson murderer Susan Atkins had experienced the early death of her mother and subsequently started having behavioral problems that made her vulnerable to the cult's allure, as Martha had, and Manson murderer Patricia Krenwinkel fled to a relative's home after the murders because she was scared the "family" would track her down, as Martha did. Manson, like Patrick, had his more trusted members go out of the compound at night to break into wealthy people's homes, steal from them, disrupt and terrorize their lives, and ultimately kill some of them.
* This is kind of a cross between Streetcar Named Desire and The Devils. It's got the pernicious cult chasing runaways down aspect of the Devils. And the plot structure is very similar to Streetcar in that we have a more grounded sister living with her fiery male paramore; and the crazy sister who comes to live with them; and how the emotional stand off comes to a head at a certain point; and they take her to an asylum at the ending.