If it were just … better, Martha Marcy May Marlene would be that film – the indie film we talk about for a while, 2011’s version of Brokeback Mountain or Blair Witch Project or at least Winter’s Bone. Unfortunately, M to the 4th didn’t care a great deal about storytelling or honesty; it just wanted to trash cult behavior. Therein lies the strength and ultimately the weakness.
College-aged and fetching wide-eyed coed Marcy May (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes her cult and goes to live with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law Ted (Hugh Dancy), who know her as “Martha”. Where the “Marlene” comes in is anybody’s guess. MMMM appears normal, but she’s all kinds of screwed up. It starts off reasonably – she’s shy and self-protective. So she swims in the nude in front of the neighbors. No biggie. So she doesn’t have any inclination to do an ounce of work … ever. Meh. So when her sister is having sex with new hubby, Martha comes and lies at the foot of the bed. OK, that’s a little freaky. Martha has clothing issues, boundary issues, personality issues, confrontational issues, heck she probably has issues with Velveeta, the 
mailman or the moon if you give her long enough to explore that f***ed up personality she’s developed.
Where did this all come from? In flashbacks, we get to revisit life at the cult. See, now here’s where they get me, because I don’t even like the brochure — lessee, a dozen or more of you live in a four-room barn on a small farm that doesn’t grow squat. The women make all the food and do all the work, but the men eat first and then you sleep by gender in one small room apiece. And when you wake up, everybody shares a limited selection of tasteless old rags to wear. Wow! Where do I sign up? THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF. Need I repeat that? Just wait. The cult is run by Salvation Army’s version of David Strathairn (John Hawkes) and he seems to feel … yeah, I’ll leave it that. By the time you get to the roofie-induced rape ritual with the brainwash chaser, you’re pretty much sick to your stomach. Are all cults this bad? How do you feel about Dianetics?
And when you get right down to it, all of Martha’s (numerous) sociopathic quirks can all be tied to the cult that had her the previous two years. Now I’m no fan of cults, and it’s a shame that Waco went down the way it did for many reasons, among them the idea that we now empathize rather than castigate the Branch Dividians … but seriously, folks? Lawlessness, too? You didn’t even give these freaks an internal code of justice? This is just wrong.
I don’t wish to give it away, but M4 also housed the worst ending of the year: imagine if Road Warrior cut to scrolling names immediately after all the vehicles had pulled out of the compound and you’ve got a good idea of where this thing went awry.
D: Sean Durkin
W: Sean Durkin
Genre: Cult bashing
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Waco apologists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: David Koresh
