Martha Marcy May Marlene

And before I lose the tempo to write about art house cinema, let me get the review of Martha Marcy May Marlene also out of the way. Not that I hated the movie in any way. It was a decent movie to say the least but it just too difficult to write about. By now, you would probably know that I am more of a mainstream cinema person and that Art House Cinema doesn’t mean much to me. Why would you show long drawn shots of roads and highways with absolutely no sound for 10 seconds or say when doors take 10 seconds to close and the camera continues to focus on it till closed.

Never quite understood why directors would, in the name of art house cinema, show random stuff with no meaning or bearing on the movie’s eventual end or story line. It is the director’s whim more than anything else. Sean Durkin seems to be one such kind of director with little or no experience in mainstream cinema which would not come as a surprise. There are so many senseless sequences or instances in 4M that after a while it really gets to your nerves and disappoints someone like me who specifically looked out for the cinema hall in which this was playing because I missed it in Melbourne.

4M is the story of Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) who is in troubled relationship with her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and decides to run away with her boyfriend Max (Christopher Abbott) to a place in rural USA. She finds herself in a weird farm like place where the show seems to be run by a scrawny ugly looking man called Patrick (John Hawkes) who one can only assume is the boyfriend’s elder brother. Where everyone sleeps in one room with about 7 or 8 mattresses thrown in. Where the men have their dinner first and only then will the women eat. Where the men have stuff that is more filling and the women make do with soup. Where the women are expected to do multiple chores during the day like farming and cleaning and doing the dishes and cooking. And you wonder why the hell would a city girl want to be here?

This love thing makes one do crazy stuff I say. More importantly, what is the big deal about this story in the first place? Is there anytime that this story will get a bit exciting? It doesn’t. It gets weirder with the minute. With some random scam involving more sexual overtones (and I was watching this after Shame which had everything that I had to see). And other than what I had seen earlier in the day, I also managed to see non consensual intercourse also in 4M. Rounded off a largely productive day on that count at least *yawn*. A little bit of a split personality angle thrown in is the only excitement I guess.

While the performances were decent especially when the schizophrenia angle creeps in and finally Olsen is expected to act and not stare at the screen with a single constipated expression. She does a better job in her other avatar. No one else in the movie actually who has anything great to report about. And watch out for the ending. It may make you tear apart your hair in acute agony. Disappointing. 4 on 10 only for some decent performances and a story line which had potential. Mind you, this is purely my opinion. Imdb seems to think otherwise and has scored it @ 7.4. Guess I didn’t get the movie.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1493409049/