Martha Marcy Mae Marlene is an uncomfortable, squirmy little film about the return of a fragile young woman from an abusive cult in the Catskills. Told with some harrowing flashbacks to her time with the commune, her return causes extreme dis-ease it to herself and her bourgeois sister and brother-in-law. Particularly when an ill-judged phonecall lets the terrifying cult leader know exactly where Martha is now hiding……
As Martha (her name is changed repeatedly by the cult, for nefarious purposes) Elizabeth Olsen is first class, she carries the movie. Locations are unspectacular but spot on – the commune was filmed in Livingston Manor, a hamlet in New York State, Lucy and Ted’s home is on the banks of Tannanah Lake, in Roscoe. In my research I came across a cycling route map that would take you past both.