Martha Marcy May Marlene
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 21, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
4
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 27, 2011
Moves from its protagonist's dream state to her memories to her waking present in imperceptible shifts - the effect is disorienting, at first, but ingenious. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanNov 3, 2011
It's a topic that's been handled in films before, perhaps most notably in Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke," but Durkin offers the most persuasively believable peek into the psyche of such a character I've ever seen. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayOct 19, 2011
Because the movie plays on so many common fears - including fears of being in a remote house with big windows when intruders arrive - the confusion of Martha Marcy May Marlene proves effective, not sloppy. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnOct 18, 2011
Like "Afterschool," Durkin's first feature explores the dangerous extremes of youth vulnerability. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 3, 2011
Olsen makes us understand, as best we can, Martha's plight. She has a tenuous grip on reality, and, thanks to Olsen's performance and Durkin's sure hand, by the film's end, so do we. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 20, 2011
A film of rough edges and no easy answers, nearly perfect in its imperfection. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoOct 11, 2011
Martha Marcy May Marlene enters so richly into psychological horror it recalls those disturbing dramatizations of Jonestown that were big on TV in the '80s. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreNov 6, 2011
The rawboned Hawkes manages both charm and menace in the same look, and Dancy gives his character a testy, fearful edge that doesn't make him scary, but rather someone we fear for. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 27, 2011
The acting in Durkin's feature is excellent. Olsen is utilized largely as an object for camera adoration, but not in the usual glamorizing way. Olsen, Hawkes and company play slippery figures with lovely assurance. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 26, 2011
A linear story, or one that was fragmented more clearly, could have been more effective. Still, a good film, ambitious and effective, introducing a gifted young actress and a director whose work I'll anticipate. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 26, 2011
Martha Marcy May Marlene offers a challenging, emotionally riveting experience, even if the conclusion dangles at the edge of an unresolvable cliffhanger. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithOct 21, 2011
This small movie carries great allegorical weight as it echoes the Manson Family, the long list of failed utopian communes that culminated in Bolshevism and the one-child policy that in China has prevented the births of untold numbers of girls. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 20, 2011
It's Olsen, as a damaged soul clinging to shifting ground, who makes this spellbinder impossible to shake. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 19, 2011
Like Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," Martha Marcy May Marlene gradually places us inside the mind of a woman who just might be insane, and in its audacious, terrifying final scene, the movie traps us there in perpetuity, refusing to provide the viewer with a way out. This time, the horror follows you home - no exit, no escape. Read full review
85
MovielineStephanie ZacharekOct 18, 2011
Olsen's performance is restrained but not tentative; you could say the same for the movie around it. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 2, 2017
The movie always fascinates thanks to Olsen, who'll never be just a semifamous sister again. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumOct 19, 2011
Martha Marcy May Marlene leaves a viewer hanging, quite literally, lost in an enveloping fog of mood without resolution. Olsen, meanwhile, definitely marks her arrival. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJan 30, 2012
Rough around the edges and too ambiguous for some tastes, this is grim but clever, insidiously creepy and affecting. And in Olsen and Durkin, it marks the arrival of two exciting talents to watch. It still should be called Mental Sex Cult. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesOct 27, 2011
Durkin reveals how the sisters have been pulled in opposite directions by the death of their parents. But the story structure also nurtures a creeping, finally unbearable dread that may have you looking over your shoulder all the way home. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 21, 2011
Durkin seems to be aiming for a Hitchcock-style thriller that has the unsettling psychological and narrative ambiguity of, say, Michael Haneke's films, with an ending you can read in many different ways. If he doesn't quite get there, it's still a remarkable feature-directing debut. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. HobermanOct 18, 2011
A deft, old-school psychological thriller (or perhaps horror film) that relies mainly on the power of suggestion and memories of hippie cult crazies. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichOct 18, 2011
A lesser movie might hammer home the idea that the cult squashes Martha's sense of self. This distinctive and haunting effort implies something much scarier: that there is no self to start with. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 17, 2011
What the writer and director, Sean Durkin, delivers here is not a cult film at all but something more troubled and insidious - a film about a cult. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyOct 16, 2011
Elizabeth Olsen steps onto the radar as a seriously accomplished actor in this mesmerizing drama, which also marks an assured feature debut for writer-director Sean Durkin. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 16, 2011
The largely elliptical script feels a few drafts shy of focus, with the thriller elements undermining the juicier questions of why one joins a cult and how life can go back to normal later. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 3, 2011
Durkin's film seems to exist in its own fractured dream state. It's hypnotic, narcotic, and trembling on the verge of either dread or redemption or some hazy state of nothingness in between. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsNov 6, 2011
Perhaps the spookiest thing in this slyly scary movie is the word-for-word way that Patrick's followers regurgitate his pablum. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 28, 2011
Director Sean Durkin's precisely constructed psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene is a movie of many m-words – memories, mirrors and madness. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 27, 2011
Elizabeth Olsen delivers an utterly transfixing turn as the title character of this chilling psychological thriller. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 27, 2011
This doesn't feel like art, it feels like a cop-out, as though Durkin couldn't decide how to end his movie, so he didn't. He's a mature filmmaker - a natural - but he's still thinking in shorts. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 21, 2011
Durkin is a bit too fond of drawn-out scenes of ominous anomie, and he doesn't provide enough psychological ballast for Martha's misery. He doesn't need to. Olsen, with her angelic face and hard-bitten voice, provides it for him. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 20, 2011
A horror movie that follows none of the predictable paths of the genre, it offers disturbing psychological drama and nuanced chills rather than outright terror. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedOct 19, 2011
Creepy and serenely suspenseful, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a riveting study in what it's like to escape from a physically, psychologically abusive cult, and how hard it is to return to normal life after being brainwashed. Read full review
50
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 11, 2011
The quietly moving drama Martha Marcy May Marlene must be thought of as an "arrival" film. That is, for all that it has going for it (and, it must be said, against it), if it is remembered for anything it will be for introducing a 22-year-old newcomer named Elizabeth Olsen. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 20, 2011
Patrick periodically criticizes his disciples, including Martha, for failing to be open enough with him, and that is also a shortcoming of Martha Marcy May Marlene, which is a bit too coy, too clever and too diffident to believe in. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 17, 2011
The non-ending turns the whole movie into an elaborate tease, too creepy to dismiss, too shallow to justify its "ambiguities." Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensOct 20, 2011
Martha Marcy May Marlene took a good hour to start really getting on my nerves. Up till then, I kept cutting this maddening little psychological thriller break after break, because it has the outer form of a promising debut. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyOct 11, 2011
The film seems almost to have been produced spontaneously, by gears of a larger system as they mesh together right this instant, culled from the ether with the words "Customers Who Also Liked Dogtooth and Winter's Bone Liked This…" Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 27, 2011
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a strange case, a drama that's disturbing and yet inert. Writer-director Sean Durkin builds an atmosphere of dread, which means that he persuades us to believe in the characters and in the central situation. But he doesn't build interest. Read full review
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