X
- 2012
- R
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 27 m
- 2012
- R
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 27 m
Summary In Sound of My Voice, Peter and Lorna, a couple and documentary filmmaking team, infiltrate a mysterious group led by an enigmatic young woman named Maggie. Intent on exposing her as a charlatan and freeing the followers from her grip, Peter and Lorna start to question their objective and each other as they unravel the secrets of Maggie'...
Directed By: Zal Batmanglij
Written By: Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij
- 2012
- R
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 27 m
- 2012
- R
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 27 m
Sound of My Voice
67
7.0
Where to Watch
Summary In Sound of My Voice, Peter and Lorna, a couple and documentary filmmaking team, infiltrate a mysterious group led by an enigmatic young woman named Maggie. Intent on exposing her as a charlatan and freeing the followers from her grip, Peter and Lorna start to question their objective and each other as they unravel the secrets of Maggie'...
Directed By: Zal Batmanglij
Written By: Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
67
73% Positive
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
27% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
67
73% Positive
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
27% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Sound of My Voice offers promise and pay off at the same time. Star and writer Brit Marling is having a rare double-whammy of a debut.
Like "Martha Marcy May Marlene," this lo-fi psychodrama reaps the benefits of a mesmerising female lead, only this time as cult leader not disciple. Marling continues to impress.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 46 User Ratings
7.0
65% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
24% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
11% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 46 User Ratings
7.0
65% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
24% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
11% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
Fascinating low budget indie about a weird little cult led by a young woman who claims to have time travelled from the future, and a couple that infiltrates the group. The secret handshake business is priceless, and the ending features a great twist. Here is to Brit Marling!
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I Love this film! I have done a lot of research about it's meaning and refused to settle for ambiguity". If you want to look deeper research Greenbaum Cult Manchurian Candidate /CIA Mind control. It will explain a LOT about the confusing scenes the little girl Abigail... the Police Officer searching room for bugs.
Of course interpret how you will. But this movie is very well informed. Very chilling
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Denham impressively captures Peter's flintiness, rendering him sympathetic yet not quite likable, and Vicius is just right as the wary Lorna.
The movie explores the basic debate over faith, the idea that we can feel a sense of relief in cynicism realized and turn around and face the horror of our lack of faith in the next moment.
Batmanglij keeps the movie even-keeled, full of medium close-ups, underscored by ambient plinks and shimmers, with nothing to break the trance until a last scene that upends everything we thought we knew.
Ambiguities trump answers, and possibly even logic. For those who aren't burdened by such things, the loopy, off-kilter pace and frontal-lobe frying provide their own unconventional pleasures. It's a cult film, in more ways than one.
The bland, jittery visual "realism" can't counteract overheated performances of tin-eared dialogue, which strain for pulp but often land at soap.
The single most overlooked film of the year. Not enough people went out to see it (i saw it 3 times in theaters) and those who saw it, could not appreciate Brit Marling's performance. After seeing Another Earth and now Sound of My Voice i know Brit Marling is one of the best actresses out there. A must see for any fans of things like twilight zone as well.
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My love for this movie is based on the fact that it leaves things very ambiguous, I don't need full story lines explaining every single little detail. I need my imagination to fill in the blanks. It was shot very low budget like the movie primer and it make me love indie cinema. If you like seeing the whole story, and you like having answers, this movie isn't for you. This movie is a romantic movie about what you believe in, or don't believe in. This is a perfect date movie, you will learn more about your significant other than any other movie.
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Very interesting despite the apparent simplicity of its plot because the best of it is the background of the story and especially the criticism towards the power of suggestion and the power of belief.
However, the theme is more ambitious than the script and its climax is terrible. And although I value that a story doesn't provide all the possible answers, the lack of communication towards its ending is overwhelming.
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This is a well-acted but ultimately disappointing film, that leaves one too many significant plot questions unanswered. Also, at times the pacing gets painfully slow. Of course it is not necessary to resolve every issue raised in a plot, but leaving so many loose threads can be indicative of weak writing, rather than an effort to create mystery.
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Is Maggie (Brit Marling) a 23 year old woman from the year 2054 or is she a scam artist on the run from the FBI? Is 8 year old Abigail (Avery Pohl) her mother? And why, and with what, does her father inject her foot with every night? Does each member, of what might be a cult, really have to learn that handshake that is so complicated were the actors chosen only by those who could accomplish it?
Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) are a young couple in California who are would be filmmakers. They are planning to join a cult and make a film exposing it to the point that Peter swallows a radio transmitter to make recordings of what is said. They, and supposedly 7-8 others are put through a ruse each time they come to the meeting of being blindfolded, driven for 20 minutes, get naked and shower and then putting on robes before they get into that handshake and taken to a room where they meet Maggie. She wears a robe with a shawl and hoodie, is attached to an oxygen machine, eats food grown by her followers and has their blood sent into her body via various tubes for protein. At other times there is no oxygen tank in sight.
At the beginning we go through psychology 101 where she has them vomit up, literally, their problems followed by, maybe, Peter being drawn in by her and foolishly agreeing to doing something that can cause him all sorts of problems. Peter seems to be more taken in by Maggie than Lorna is which causes them problems as a couple.
Out of nowhere the camera moves to a woman (Davenia McFadden) on an airplane coming into Los Angeles, checking into a hotel, carrying all sorts of paraphernalia and then we go back to the cult meeting. In another 10-15 minute sequence there is a woman showing Lorna how to shoot a gun which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the movie just as Peter stopping his car to urinate and, as far as I can tell, uses an asthma inhaler means anything except to extend the movie to 84 minutes.
The director, Zal Batmanglij, who wrote the screenplay with Brit Marling, doesnâ
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Production Company
Skyscraper Films
Release Date Apr 27, 2012
Duration 1 h 27 m
Rating R
Awards
Film Independent Spirit Awards
• 2 Nominations
Georgia Film Critics Association (GAFCA)
• 2 Nominations
Palm Springs International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
