Martha Marcy May Marlene

In cinemas 2 February

The American indie toast of both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, Sean Durkin’s unnerving and insidiously offbeat horror-thriller exposes the sinister underside of religious cult deprogramming via an ingeniously suggestive and prickly performance from Elizabeth Olsen. It opens with a dishevelled and volatile Martha (Olsen) seeking refuge with her pedantic older sister (Paulson) and prig hubby (Dancy) in their sterile lakeside retreat. Formally (and, for that matter, atmospherically) we’re deep in Last Year at Marienbad country, as the film switches back and forth in time to offer a series of layered and increasingly uncomfortable reveals as to what questionable deeds our multi-monikered heroine has been up to for the last two years. This is a majorly impressive and rigorous nightmare movie.  

Win tickets to the preview screening.