Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a 2011 American psychological thriller-drama film written and directed by Sean Durkin, and starring Elizabeth Olsen (in her film debut), John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and Hugh Dancy. The plot focuses on a young woman suffering from delusions and paranoia after returning to her family from an abusive cult in the Catskill Mountains. Plot A 22-year-old woman named Martha has been living as a member of a cult in the Catskill Mountains for two years. The leader of the cult, Patrick, granted her the name Marcy May upon her initiation. Eventually, she decides to flee and escapes into the woods, arriving at a nearby town. In a diner restaurant, she is confronted by Watts, a cult member, who attempts to persuade her to return, but when she refuses, he lets her leave. Martha calls her sister Lucy, who picks her up and takes her to the vacation lake house in Connecticut that she shares with her husband, a successful and wealthy architect named Ted. While staying with Lucy and Ted at the lake house, Martha begins exhibiting strange behavior by skinny dipping in a public lake, sleeping all the time, not eating, and arguing with her sister and brother-in-law about how to live, specifically arguing over the need for career and possessions. Lucy reveals she abandoned Martha and is now attempting to get her back into her life, while she and Ted are also trying to have their own child. One night, Martha climbs into bed with Ted and Lucy while they are having sex, angering Ted. Martha then attempts to phone the cult, but hangs up when one of the female members answers using the code name "Marlene Lewis". In flashbacks, Martha recalls a series of disturbing events that led to her escape the cult: Martha became a member through her friend, Zoe. She initially seems receptive but somewhat wary of Patrick and Katie. She is later convinced by Zoe and Patrick to let her guard down, only to end up being drugged by Katie and brutally raped by Patrick in an initiation cleansing ritual, (which she later facilitates for another incoming female member, Sarah). She was then gaslit by cult matriarch Katie and was forced to accept that her being brutally raped by Patrick was good, as well as being convinced by Zoe that her cleansing is a good thing.