MovieChat Forums > Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) Discussion > Watch This Movie Twice

Watch This Movie Twice

posted 12 years ago by sakulin
12 replies | jump to latest

My initial reaction after watching Martha for the first time was that it was slow and lacked an ending. However, after reading some of the comments on here I decided to watch it a second time and saw it from a much different perspective. This is a suspense movie, actually a slow motion horror film. The ending is clear, it is the beginning of the end especially for Martha and probably her sister and brother-in -law. The man sitting on the other side of the lake that Martha saw near the end while swimming was from the cult. When the three of them left the house to take Martha for treatment he was forced to hurry to get to his vehicle which was parked in the street. In his hurry he bumped into their car and then proceeded to get into his vehicle to follow them. Martha was a marked woman because she was a witness to a murder and the cult assumes that she told her sister and brother-in-law of the crime, which also marked them. Very skillfully done.

[–] Pinky_thu-Fluffy 12 years ago

No thank you. It was torture trying to get through this mess the first time.

I am NOT Hepfelder

[–] Thiang 12 years ago

PinkyIsHerOwnPerson replied Oct 7,
"No thank you. It was torture trying to get through this mess the first time."

Lol, I disagree on the mess part although I don't really feel I need to watch it a second time. I think the whole story was very well done and Olsen's performance was masterful. I usually don't like when an ending cuts off that way but it was done in a way that made it clear what the fate of the main characters were...or at least clear in the sense that they wouldnt be making it to any clinic/hospital. I really enjoyed this movie. It was definitely a refreshing change from all the mainstream diarrhea thats out there these days.

[–] westal_sage 12 years ago

I liked the film but did get all that the first time around. I didn't feel any ambiguity in the ending at all, and the OP is spot on.

The film is well done - it's good about adding new layers and tightening loose ends as it goes along.

[–] ToHelenBackAgain 12 years ago

Agreed. It was clear on first viewing. And horribly sad.

Great film. Don't watch it.

"Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourette's." -- Lewis Black

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

Why "don't watch it"--because it's so sickeningly sad at the end?

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[–] gsworth02 12 years ago

This movie has an ambiguous ending. You don't know the things she sees at the end are real at all. It's just supposed to make you as a viewer feel her paranoia.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

I suppose there's no way to prove it's not ambiguous, but I feel the subtleties of the film language used make it pretty clear that we are seeing the occupants in the car in their last seconds before they meet a grisly end.

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[–] Sitcom_Sally 12 years ago

So, at the end he was running to his car parked up from their lakehouse, bumped into their car, they asked him if he was okay, then he went on to his car? Did they open their car door to see if he was okay then shut it? That's what it sounded like to me, although I thought someone had gotten out of the car, which made no sense. So, this makes more sense to me. Now, this along with the idea that she might have been sent home to help the cult get money from her sister is a possibility. I posted in that thread they left it ambiguous because she obviously either had money for her meal as soon as she left the cult and money for her phone call or someone would have run after her or she'd have made a collect call. We see neither her pay for her meal nor her call nor anyone chase after her nor her make a collect call. I think they left that intentionally ambiguous. I don't think it's a hallucination that the cult member is there on the side of the road, but whether or not he's there to get her or her sister and brother-in-law is the question, in my opinion.

- Sally

The perfect human being is uninteresting. - Joseph Campbell

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jtny75 11 years ago

I agree that the ending was ambiguous and supposed to keep you guessing as to their fate..the guy on the rock was prob a hallucination..

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

I've only seen it once, but I agree with you. My Twitter review of the film reads as follows:

"Martha Marcy May Marlene": Way to stick the landing! The incredibly intense and harrowing ending transformed a good movie into a great one.

I think it's pretty clear that as we leave them, Martha and her sister and brother-in-law are experiencing their last few seconds of life. And that is a far more horrific and sickening way to leave the audience than if they had stayed with it another minute to show the carnage. That is, as long as the audience can be trusted to understand what they are seeing, which is not necessarily always the case.

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[–] L0GAN5 9 years ago

Why would anything happen after the end credits when nothing happened in the rest of the movie?