Martha Marcy May Marlene

Haunted by painful memories and suffering from increasing anxiety, Martha escapes an abusive cult and returns home to live with her older sister, Lucy, and Lucy’s husband, Ted. With no other family lean on, Martha tries desperately to assimilate into Ted and Lucy’s upper-middle-class lifestyle. But nightmares of the cult that brainwashed her into living as Marcy May prevent her from connecting with the only people who may be able to save her. As Martha’s isolation grows, her severe paranoia escalates. Ultimately, she descends into a dizzying state of panic as the growing fear that she is being hunted grips her every move.

Giving a breakout performance as Martha (Marcy May), Elizabeth Olsen, sister of the famous Olsen twins, exhibits a depth of character reminiscent of a young Maggie Gyllenhaal. A stunning follow-up to his short Mary Last Seen, a 2010 Cannes award-winner, writer/director Sean Durkin’s chilling first feature puts him on the map as a filmmaker to watch. –Sundance Film Festival