The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label John Hawkes. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 December 2019

Movie review: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

A psychological drama, Martha Marcy May Marlene delves into the shadows hanging over the troubled psyche of a cult survivor.

Deep in the Catskill Mountains, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes from a commune and sex cult consisting of young men and women under the influence of creepy leader Patrick (John Hawkes), who granted her the name Marcy May, and his sidekick Watts (Brady Corbet). Martha makes it to the posh lakefront Connecticut vacation home of her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who is married to architect Ted (Hugh Dancy).

Martha and Lucy have a strained relationship, and the peace and quiet Ted craves at his vacation sanctuary is disrupted by Martha's unsettling presence and unconventional behaviour. In flashback Martha's experiences at the commune are revealed, including her increasing attachment to Patrick and the commune's involvement in criminal activity. It becomes clear to Lucy her sister is going to need professional help, but Patrick may not be ready to accept Martha's departure.

Featuring a brooding mood and a haunting debut performance from Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a sombre experience. Martha's odd and argumentative behaviour at Lucy's house, including public nudity, nonchalantly walking in on Lucy and Ted during lovemaking, and a psychotic episode of mistaken identity, lay bare the reality that while she has physically escaped Patrick's cult, the damage lingers deep within her.

And she is not quite sure where she belongs. In the cold and mostly empty lakeside house Martha starts longing for the familiar comforts of the cramped commune, where similarly lost souls looked out for each other and kept warm at night sleeping in the same room. Her phone calls back to the commune are juxtaposed with flashbacks of the crimes Patrick is capable of inspiring, and suddenly Lucy's house may no longer be a safe haven.

Director and writer Sean Durkin is more interested in a slow reveal of Martha's troubled history rather than any character evolution. He builds unease by progressively exposing the horrors beneath the surface of a group of young adults supposedly living off the land. Patrick is the classic egotistical manipulator using psychobabble and veiled threats to control others and satisfy his twisted needs. While Martha's life chapter before the commune remains vague, her rebellious nature clearly led her down the wrong path.

And just as the pre-commune origins are skipped, the postscript is also left open. Martha Marcy May Marlene is concerned with the young survivor's middle chapters. Her bad decisions past and present are never far away, and neither are the dreadful consequences.

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Tuesday, 10 January 2017

Movie Review: The Sessions (2012)

A drama about overcoming physical disability to satisfy a basic human need, The Sessions cannot move much beyond its basic premise.

Berkeley, California, in 1988. Aspiring poet Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes) lives most of his life in an iron lung, his muscles rendered fairly useless due to complications from polio. Mark functions in society thanks to the help of full time caretakers, but grows increasingly desperate to have sex. He consults with his priest Father Brendan (William H. Macy), before connecting with professional sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene (Helen Hunt).

Cheryl commits to working with Mark over six sessions. He gradually gets used to being touched and controlling his arousal, and works his way towards an ability to have intercourse. But there are emotional complications ahead, both between Mark and Cheryl and between Cheryl and her husband.

Directed and written by Ben Lewin based on the article by O'Brien, The Sessions is a small intimate story, and that is both its charm and its limitation. The desires of one man to experience the joy of sex and his subsequent encounters with a sex surrogate are intriguing, but provide constrained scope for a cinematic experience. Apart from featuring frank depictions of sexual mechanics, the story of The Sessions could have been told in a 15 minute television segment with no loss of impact.

The padding is apparent, and extends to quite useless side-stories involving Mark's caretakers, a predictable but nevertheless prolonged journey to the land where sex and love become confused dance partners, and some unconvincing attempts to capture the impact of the relationship on Cheryl's already unusual family life. The scenes featuring Mark providing a startled Father Brendan with a play-by-play describing the quest to lose his virginity inject some humour but also become repetitive.

The two leads almost salvage the film. John Hawkes delivers a physically punishing performance, mainly prostrate with his body painfully deformed. Helen Hunt was nominated for an Academy Award, seemingly as a reward for embracing nudity as a matter-of-fact business requirement.

The courage on show in The Sessions is mildly uplifting, but the film otherwise carries next to no lasting resonance.