Here's my crazy theory.

Very interesting. I can dig what you're saying. 6/10

Look at the night sky, where does it end?

Hmmm....

Just watched this and your theory by far is the most coherent and straight-forward...

Kudos

That actually makes a lot of sense. I also thouht that the "justice department" woman was sent from the future. Anyway, well done.

I got the vibe that the girl was being sexually abused. That's why throughout the film she's emotionally despondent and falls asleep during the day. Classic sign of child abuse or a troubled home. I thought the lego/building blocks were her expressing what she couldn't say, like when abused children draw disturbing pictures. The needle injections were to sedate her while the father.. had his way. He injected her in the toe to hide the needle marks. And I guess what was on the laptop would just be obvious.

Throughout the film I don't recall seeing or hearing mention of her mother, so I'm going to assume she's not around. I can't recall what year this movie takes place, but as for a random theory maybe her mother died on 9/11. As a result the father became prejudiced and bitter against middle eastern people and that's how the little girl picked up the "terrorist" word that she wrote on the backpack. Children pick up a lot of their vices from their parents. That also might loosely explain the skyscraper/buildings she built with the blocks/lego.


I didn't really think out my little theory much so there are probably holes in it everywhere.

That is a very interesting theory and if true would certainly have made this film worth sitting through, but I was just not convinced that Maggie was from the future even though I was really hoping that she would be.

And if Carol were also from the future then why was she able to live in the outside world as apposed to Maggie who needed oxygen tanks and specially grown food to survive? And why wouldn't she just go directly to Maggie's basement and get her instead of drawing her out into the open?

There's a bunch of other stuff that didn't gel with me but I won't go into it because it's moot and the film isn't really about providing answers to any of that stuff, it's really about leading you down a vague path and leaving you with an ambiguous ending.

The problem is at that point I didn't care. So the little girl knew the handshake. Yeah? And? Who's to say Maggie was not from the future and learned the handshake from the little girl's mother whom she grew up with? The movie is so ambiguous you could make up a dozen different explanations that could potentially fit.

And if Maggie really was from the future then I think she completely wasted her time in the past.

Don't try to cash in love, that check will always bounce.

Something I keep thinking about is how Maggie tells the cultists she is going away. This means she may already know she is going to get taken by the DOJ lady. Does this support she really is from the future? Otherwise, what did she mean when she told them she was leaving?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiloZd1H4ow

That's a damn good theory, OP. I can usually poke holes in theories like this that are based on pure speculation, but this one's pretty solid. I just saw this movie last night, so it's still fresh on my mind and I can't find a single flaw in your theory.

Another thing that may support Carol being a "time cop" is that the plane she was seen flying on looked almost futuristic. The wing of the plane had that bizarre mutation of the American flag on it, which quite possibly is what the flag looks like in the future. And the cabin of the plane had some strange purplish lighting which added to the "futuristic" atmosphere.

I was a professional twice over: An analyst and a therapist. The world's first...

well you said it... 'crazy' - however I can sympathise with your confusion as I think the director perhaps made the wrong choice of ending (e.g. the bright sunlight coming through the door and slightly unconvincing LAPD officers) and confused the tone of the film therefore.

Also, I'm a bit concerned that some folk on here are exactly the type of people that get recruited by cults.

Remember, the main topic of the film is cult psychology, not time-travel and super-terrorist-assassins in training. The director never suggests it's sci-fi, like the film 'Primer', which has a similar feel. Obviously the film is designed to confuse and confound so that you can feel what the two main characters are feeling, but here's my attempt to make some sense of it...

The key characters to focus on here are not 'Maggie' or Peter, but Klaus and his assistant Mel (the two characters who at the end say "Call The attorney" - not 'we need to find a lawyer' - i.e. this sort of thing has happened before and they are prepared - e.g. Scientologists are protected by an army of lawyers and advocates who have managed to acquire status for them as a state recognised religion despite the fact that most academics regard them as meeting the criteria for 'cult' status - BBC Panorama famously made two documentaries about this - it has been almost certainly proven that they monitor people with private detectives similar to the cult in this film, black-mail rich members like Tom Cruise and use expensive teams of lawyers to avoid public court cases - they also use private members 'church' offices, unlike open Christian churches or Mosques). Many of the issues in this film are also covered in Paul Thomas Anderson's new film 'The Master', which is based on Hubbard and the small scale origins of Scientology.

In 'Sound of My Voice', Klaus and Mel are the only two who Maggie did not recruit - they have been searching around in a deprived part of the city amongst drug addicts for a person they can 'save' and brainwash into believing they are from the future - they may even believe it themselves in some sense. The young boy at the start (who some on this board report seeing in preview screenings) and the Abigail Pritchett character, whom the cult have been stalking either because she is Maggie's child in foster care (possibly the explanation of how Maggie taught Abigail the childish secret handshake/clap) or just because she looks like she is related (similar face and hair), are part of their scheme to suggest to Maggie that she has child-aged parents in the present - which would then be proof of her origins in the future and confirmation of her messiah delusion - they have manufactured the perfect naive cult leader, who believes her own *beep* when she looks into the eyes of her child/mother. The knowledge of her tattoos and likely previous involvement with a cult or some other type of abusive relationship (leading to drug addiction, homeless wandering throughout California and violent crime), as with Peter, suggests that Klaus has researched court cases involving cults/child-abuse to try and find willing subjects, on which he can conduct his new-age religious experiment - perhaps he is a disgraced academic or the like. Klaus is using science and psychology to manufacture a Messiah figure for the 21st century, presumably because he wants some sort of meaning or belonging in his own life, after some previous failed attempt to join and influence a cult.

Peter's mother's circumstances of death and Maggie's possible loss of custody of her child, possibly due to her record of arson and robbery, will have both appeared in newspapers and there will be a courthouse paper trail and internet coverage - perhaps Klaus or Mel have had some involvement with social services in the past or have a contact in the local government.

Ask yourself, if you were from the future, would the Mexican motel-cleaning lady recognise you, throw you out (probably for not paying or wrecking the joint) and send you off onto the streets where you just mysteriously happen to know the exact street corner where you can buy heroine and fire up with a spoon. 'Space junkies from 2052'! - that sequence was a fairly clear directorial joke about the stories of scatty drug addicts - I know a guy who is addicted to prescription painkillers who occasionally comes out with similar romanticised stories. Also remember, this is not sci-fi, and physical time travel is scientifically impossible - only information can travel back and forward in time according to quantum mechanics - that means 1's and 0's, not junkies, no matter how skinny or naked they are.

The cult is likely an off-shoot of a larger movement, either physically or in theory through books/ideas, just as the famous 'Branch Davidians' of Waco were (but this time roughly based on cults like Scientology and Heaven's Gate). This is the explanation behind the shooting range sequence - the Davidians interest in arming themselves for a potential holy civil war. So the pseudo-intellectual Klaus has established the small cult off-shoot, their own new-age religion (based on the ideas contained in that big pile of new age religious/psychology books sitting in Maggie's basement bedroom/prison cell where she sits smoking weed and cigarettes, while on dialysis and taking vitamins, as you would do if you were sent from the future to save a Noah's ark of the chosen ones, of course!).

So Maggie recounts how she woke up overdosed in a bathtub, as often happens to junkies, with a dead arm that she has been lying on for hours, as alcoholics and junkies often experience too. Due to brain damage, she can remember nothing but her name, 'Maggie' and her birthday, which just happens to be Halloween 31st Oct - that's a directors clue/joke there - the festival of make-believe and masks. When asked to remember a song she sings an old cheesy Cranberries song which has been used in many TV adverts - she struggles to remember who sung it, but concludes it was 'Benetton' - at which point I burst out laughing because it's exactly the type of song you would hear in a Benetton advert on TV (indeed the cult looks exactly like a Benetton advert from the 90's) - but Maggie does not know she is lying of course - which is what always confuses Peter, because he is somewhat of conspiracy theorist with regard to who controls cults and what their intention is, yet believes he is also entirely logical, unbiased and sensible at all times (a dangerous assumption to make about yourself).

Maggie (real name Shelly Whithall) is not from the future, she is a drug addict and probably former cult-member or child-abuse victim on dialysis, paid for by the well connected Klaus, who desperately needs a beautiful and charismatic simpleton to act as a focus for his new cult off-shoot. Most likely, based on her Maggie-like appearance and the fact that her health conditions are consistent with fetal disorders suffered by the children of drug addicts, little Abigail is 'Maggie'/Shelley Whithall's daughter - she receives medication via injection, struggles to stay awake or concentrate at school, may be autistic and requires a laptop in her room to look at bedtime stories and school lessons - something dyslexic people have to do - unless of course Mr Pritchett (with his suspiciously dyed platinum blonde hair - as if trying to fool the kid into believing he is the biological dad) the parent/foster carer is also in on the cult and is in fact indoctrinating the girl - the film intends you to be at least suspicious of most people you see in the story. She has become obsessed with things that she has seen on TV, like 9/11 and terrorism and so writes the word 'terrorist' on a back-pack and builds models of the twin towers with her educational building blocks - which they give to kids with learning difficulties. Additionally, the director may be making a reference to the fact that the 9/11 bombers which dominated American consciousness for so long, were in some ways nothing but a bunch of brainwashed kids who joined Al-Zakawari's crazy death cult in the middle east, worshiping their simpleton 'prophet' Bin Laden, with his inane simplistic theories about how to solve the world's problems. Also, why does Peter believe that he can easily get away with taking the little girl away from school for a while ? ... well, because she is expected to behave abnormally and no carers will come looking for her 'new friends' if she recounts the story - she is a vulnerable girl in a foster home receiving special care, and Peter knows it.

Remember, Peter and the others have been specially selected because they are useful to the cult. They all have dependents, who will trust them and go along with the scheme: Christine (the attractive Chinese-american lady) is known to Maggie - she explains this to Peter in the bedroom scene - she has personal info on her from her youth, and so can manipulate her - Lam gets thrown out because he stops trusting Christine's judgement and is therefore of no use to them any longer - this is something that psychic mediums do when they research a persons background and convince them to cut off contact with doubting loved ones - even more powerful in this case because the 'psychic' does not fully understand why she already knows Christine - just as she cannot fully recollect why she feels compelled to hide in a basement protected by strangers (i.e. she may be slowly starting to recall her criminal activities and lifestyle and feels far better off in hiding with people who treat her well).

The homosexual couple, Lyle and O'Shea (the brown-skinned guy with the smooth shaved head), have been recruited because this suggests that the group is modern and open-minded rather than bigoted or homophobic like older religious communities - this makes the cult members feel better about themselves - notice the multi-racial element too, bringing in all of California's different communities. It also repeats the couples pattern, like Noah's Ark and easier to manipulate psychologically - just as people unknowingly marry into Scientology, like actress Katie Holmes, then can't back out. Maggie also explains that people have previously been thrown out of the cult, suggesting Klaus has experimented with different group dynamics, which have sometimes failed, hence his paranoia and secretive methods (notice the bodyguard/driver who ties up members' hands. He has to dupe both Maggie and the members, perhaps even himself and Mel eventually - to achieve 'enlightenment'.

Peter has been selected because he is a supply teacher with a history with cults (his mother's fatal beliefs) - possibly they suggested to him that he apply to be a supply teacher (as opposed to continuing with film making and writing like his girlfriend - which is less useful to them), thereby giving the cult access to children and specifically Abigail, Maggie's daughter. Peter has convinced himself that he is acting out of choice because he is making a documentary, but in fact he has largely abandoned the documentary and gets manipulated into doing more and more ridiculous things - it's likely he was manipulated from the start therefore. His girlfriend Lorna ends up being the spanner in the works because she does not have a personal fear or history with cults.

Some comments here suggest that the Justice Department investigator (Carol Briggs) that flies into town from her head office upstate is not genuine on account of her lack of credentials and her paranoid checking of her hotel room for bugs - but in fact further discussions between Carol and Lorna, Peter's girlfriend, as well as with the 'Metropolitan Police', seem to have taken place judging by the last sequence - perhaps Lorna is a little too trusting of the cops but clearly she is forced to trust someone and chooses what seems like the better option. It is quite far fetched, or as you say 'crazy', to suggest that Carol is just there because she is from an airplane of 'future-people' going on holiday to the past and has brought a troop of fake police with her in full uniform and has somehow faked an old photo of Maggie/Shelley Whithall in a 1990's street-scape - or as the cops call her 'Shelley Anne Whithall' when they read her her rights. Also why would Klaus call a lawyer if they were not the real justice department and were in fact imposters abducting Maggie? No, sorry - THEY ARE cops and Carol is an investigator - but clearly her paranoia and initial fear/secrecy as she checks into a hotel, assuming she is being spied on, is the result of some previous dealings with the cult and their affiliates. She has some knowledge about Scientology-type intimidation tactics and seems to be aware of the way that the cult investigates people itself - such as Peter e.g. was the apple vomiting scene a set up to try and uncover the receiver/recorder? It's difficult to say exactly how well connected or powerful the group are, but my guess would be that they are not yet very skilled at spying on people but aim to be, as other cults tend to be as they get bigger. The arson and armed robbery charges that they use against Maggie/Shelley Whithall are just a way of getting at the cult and preventing them from using her to help defraud people or commit other crimes - since they cannot actually locate or prove anything specific about the cult as yet, which the cult seems to be well aware of given the last discussion between Klaus and Mel. Part of the threat that a cult presents to law authorities is that, particularly in the modern age, they tend to be skilled at disguising how far they are linked to other 'cells' or a bigger mainstream organisation and how far they have penetrated public institutions. Famously, Adolf Hitler was once merely a guest speaker (trained in the art of crowd manipulation by the cold-reader and astrologer Hanussen, the subject of two feature films) at Thule Society funded meetings (They were also a sort of theosophical cult) but eventually this charismatic idiot became a 'legit' political leader with friends in the judiciary who helped him escape justice for his criminal acts (and we know how that ended). His success was often based merely around the sound of his voice, rather than the nonsense which he often spoke, just as Maggie comes out with completely unjustifiable accusations and statements about other people (then suddenly decides to treat Peter very differently in private with no audience). And the finger of blame is pointed at us as a society, not the charismatic leader who has been molded by the cult - 'Its not my choice Peter, it's your choice'.

One thing is for sure in this confusing film - that the director intends us to believe that we are seeing how cults confuse and manipulate everyone they deal with and corrupt. Even if you look at the structure of the film - it's presented as a 10 step plan with numbered title screens, just like the indoctrination courses run by well established new aged cults, designed to break down your sense of identity and reason. It worries me how easily some people on here slip into nonsensical conspiracy theory interpretations of the film. I am almost entirely certain that the director is NOT suggesting that a Californian new-age cult that believes in time-travel and worships a brain-damaged, dying drug addict martyr figure could in fact be genuine time travelers hunted by a Terminator-like bounty hunter, played by a middle aged woman armed with a justice dept. case-file working for some future-omni-cult, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fat-suite. If that's what you took away from the film, then you've been watching too many daft adventure movies - go and read some articles/books about Scientology or Heaven's Gate and you'll see what I mean. Or watch another film about cults such as 'Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene' 2011 - a slightly better film, although more limited in its scope.