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ON MOVIES: New films capture angst, trepidation and paranoia

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 3, 2011 - Angst, trepidation and paranoia, besides being a great name for a law firm, describe the mood of, say, 99 percent of Americans in these troubled times. Two movies currently playing here skillfully capture that mood. Unlike the excellent investment-bank dissection "Margin Call," neither of them focuses directly on the financial crisis that so dominates today's headlines, but both deal with very real worldly fears as well as (possibly) imagined ones.

"Martha Marcy May Marlene" is about a girl who has escaped from a cult and is afraid she will be found.

"Take Shelter" looks at a man desperate to protect himself and his family from a great cataclysm of nature that he senses is coming soon.

Both movies are filled with ambiguities and end with important questions still to be resolved. And yet I found both of them, while flawed, to be emotionally satisfying, well made, well acted and humanly interesting. They are dramas of doubt and uncertainty, of mood and nuance.

I would not describe either of them as "feel-good movies."

Both depend upon the strong central performances of relatively unknown actors. Both exhibit aspects of a psychological horror film, although at bottom both are character studies.

Elizabeth Olsen, who is in her early 20s, makes her feature film debut with "Martha Marcy," and it is a strong debut. (She is, by the way, the younger sister of the child actors/dress designers the Olsen Twins.) This is also the first feature for Sean Dirkin, who directs with a sure hand from his own script.

The film opens with a few simple shots of what appears to be a large farm family in traditional garb working in the fields. Then the women prepare dinner. The men eat first, the women second. At this point, we could be watching some conservative religious group trying to live the simple, hard-working lives of rural families a century and a half ago.

Then, early one morning, the pastoral mood abruptly shatters. A young woman (Olsen) runs away from the farm. She is pursued by men and women calling her name - "Marcy May" -- but she manages to escape to a small town and contact her older sister. The sister (Sarah Paulson), who is staying with her husband at a lavish summer house in a lake community not too far away, picks her up. She calls the girl "Martha."

We learn that the two have not seen each other for two years, and that they grew up essentially without parents. The sister has reacted to childhood pain and chaos by choosing a conventional life focused on possessions and social status; Martha has done the opposite. Reunited, they clash almost immediately. The sister suggests a swim. Martha immediately strips off her clothes and dives in, in full view of the neighbors.

At that point, using the water as a linking device, the story flows back in time to a rural swimming hole full of wiggling naked bodies, and in a series of flashbacks we begin to learn what attracted Martha to the commune. The charismatic leader of what is clearly a cult, played with a chilling mixture of allure and menace by John Hawkes of "Winter's Bone," lures her into the fold with charisma and affection. Slowly, we realize he is a charming psychopath, capable of both tenderness and sudden, murderous violence, obsessed with control.

He changes Martha's name to "Marcy May," as if he owns her, and she willingly submits to his sometimes humiliating dominance until he finally goes too far and the spell is partially broken.

From there, the story proceeds on two tracks, one in the present at the lake house, the other in the past on the communal farm. At times, it is unclear which track we are on, an uncertainty that fits perfectly with Martha's disorientation and sense of being lost. Long after she has escaped, she is literally haunted by her life with the cult, and always fearful that she will be found by the members and kidnapped or killed. In the last third of the movie, it becomes increasingly clear that her fears are more than paranoia. But, in Martha's world, nothing is certain, not even her name.

In "Take Shelter," written and directed by Jeff Nichols ("Shotgun Stories"), Curtis LaForche lives in a small Ohio town with his wife (Jessica Chastain) and 6-year-old daughter. He works at a sand quarry, but his time is increasingly taken up preparing for the Biblical storm that he, and only he, strongly senses will soon sweep across the land, destroying everything in its path.

LaForche is played by Michael Shannon, who was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of the mentally disturbed neighbor in "Revolutionary Road" (2008). Shannon, with his tall, gaunt physique and his long, mottled, haunted face, is convincing as an Everyman driven around the bend by stress.

Borrowing thousands of dollars for materials and taking construction equipment from work, he begins to expand an old storm shelter in his backyard. Spending increasing amounts of time off from work for his project, he eventually gets himself fired, and he has to confront the ordinary fears of the day - lack of employment, dwindling amounts of money, no health insurance. But he keeps expanding the shelter, and stocks it with food and water for a long stay underground. His friends desert him; his wife threatens to leave him and take his daughter, but he keeps on digging, trying to complete the shelter before disaster strikes.

Then something happens.

Some may find the ending gimmicky, others may find it profound. But there is no question that the movie as a whole is suspenseful, provocative and timely.

Harper Barnes, the author of Never Been A Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked The Civil Rights Movement, is a special contributor to the Beacon. 

Harper Barnes
Harper Barnes' most recent book is Never Been A Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked The Civil Rights Movement