Martha Marcy May Marlene isn’t an easy watch, but it’s an impressive debut for both director Sean Durkin and rising star Elizabeth Olsen.

A young woman (Olsen) escapes a communal house in the Catskill mountains and moves in with her estranged sister (Paulson) and her husband (Dancy). As the story unfolds through flashbacks and through Martha’s difficult attempts to integrate with her new family, we learn that the seemingly happy community Martha was part of was in fact a cult, and that they did some very bad things during her time with them.

In most films, a young girl successfully escaping the clutches of a cult would be a happy ending, but Durkin is more interested in exploring the long aftermath.

Elizabeth Olsen delivers a standout performance of three different Marthas – the carefree Martha who first joins the cult, the Martha who gradually realises what she has really signed up for, and finally the introverted, psychologically damaged Martha who struggles to find a sense of self again. 

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a film that shows but doesn’t tell. Durkin’s camera is an impassive observer, documenting the action with deliberate compositions held for long, static takes that ratchet up the growing sense of tension.

The audience has to fill in many of the gaps themselves – and this has the effect of drawing us into Martha’s paranoia and uncertainty about what is real and what isn’t. Does that 4x4 parked by the house belong to a neighbour, or is it the cult coming to reclaim Martha? Is that bartender at the party just a local student, or a cult member keeping tabs on her? We never really know, and nor does Martha.

The ending will leave people guessing – some will even feel cheated by it. But like the survivor of an abusive cult, you’ll find yourself haunted by the film long after watching.