Film Review – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Here’s a film that leaves a host of unanswered questions and uncontested behavior behind. A deliberately opaque psychological drama, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a frustrating picture to watch, and it’s not because of its gut-churning portrayal of survival and surrender. Writer/director Sean Durkin aims to produce a mood of escalating disease, watching the title character succumb to her demons, fighting to grasp an enormous amount of trauma incurred by enigmatic seducers and antagonistic types. There’s plenty of meaningful staring and teary acts of mental distortion, but insight? Not in this remote art-house effort, a feature that prefers to exhibit pain instead of understanding it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com