Review by Pamela Zoslov
Brit
Marling, the willowy blond economics graduate who turned down a
career at Goldman Sachs to become an actress, is the co-writer and
star of SOUND OF MY VOICE,
an absorbing low-budget thriller about a cult leader (played by
Marling) who claims that she comes from the future. Marling taught
herself to write because she reasoned it was the only way she could
get good roles. She previously wrote and starred in the well regarded
2011 sci-fi drama ANOTHER
EARTH.
SOUND
OF MY VOICE was
originally conceived as a ten-part webisode, and for that reason,
there remain a few loose plot threads. Nonetheless, it is a tense,
suspenseful drama with a tantalizingly ambiguous story, atmospheric
cinematography by Rachel Morrison and haunting music by indie rocker
Rostam Batmaglij (the brother of the film's director and co-writer,
Zal Batmaglij).
The story centers on Peter (Christopher Denham), a young,
bespectacled L.A. schoolteacher who sets out to make a documentary
film exposing the cult leader Maggie, who says she was born in the
year 2030 and has wisdom to impart to her followers – “the chosen
ones” – who meet in an unfurnished basement in the Valley. The
film opens as Peter and his girlfriend, Lorna (Nicole Vicius), a
former Hollywood wild child, posing as cult initiates, are led
blindfolded to the secret basement. Maggie emerges, dressed in a
white sheet and with an oxygen cannula in her nose – the
contemporary atmosphere is poisonous to her future-born system, her
followers explain — to tell her story. She says she woke up one day
underwater, in a bathtub, and could not remember anything about her
life. After wandering the streets, aimless and sick, she came to
recognize that she had a special mission. She has traveled back in
time, she says, “to save the people I love.” Peter believes
Maggie is a fraud — a dangerous fraud capable of leading her
followers to something, maybe mass suicide.
The film creates a prickly sense of foreboding, as Peter and Lorna's
mission grows more dangerous. Maggie's methods at first include such
benign New Agey things as guided meditations and improvisational
dance, along with vague bits of spiritual “wisdom” like “Things
come together and they fall apart.” Sometimes her recollections
seem clearly faked, but when a member questions her veracity, he is
quickly ejected from the group.
Things quickly become more sinister. Maggie's rituals descend into
forced group vomiting, which she describes as a means of “purifying
yourself, preparing to receive your destiny.” Maggie, whose
time-traveling claims are questionable but who has a great instinct
for self-preservation, zeroes in on the doubtful-looking Peter. She
calls him an “anal-retentive prick” and wrests from him tearful
memories — faked, he later claims — of childhood abuse. There are
hints of greater danger to come: Lorna is led to a remote shooting range, Maggie enlists Peter to perform an
unsavory task. The couple's relationship frays as one of
them starts to fall under Maggie's enchantment.
The
film falters a little in portraying Maggie's supposed mesmeric
quality, because Marling is clearly a better writer than actress. Her
cult leader is vague and affectless, not powerful and charismatic
enough to inspire followers to give over their lives to her. The
other lead performances are quite good, and the screenplay is
particularly well observed. I liked a scene in which Peter and Lorna
discuss whether to proceed with the documentary in spite of the
danger. Peter argues that they need to make the film to justify their
lives, which otherwise represent the aimless drifting of young
creative dilettantes. Instead of making the documentary, he says, “I
could just teach all day, and you can stay home and write and surf
the Web, and on weekends, we can get wasted at various art
installations and random foreign films.” Aside from the getting wasted part, he has just about described my life.
The
story's ambiguity, reminiscent of that of another recent indie thriller, TAKE SHELTER, could be frustrating to
some viewers, but I think it makes the the film all the more
interesting. 3 out of 4 stars.
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