2011 mystery
Rating: 14/20
Plot: Two documentary filmmakers infiltrate a cult led by a woman who claims to be from the year 2054.
This is a movie you either like a little bit or really hate. I’ll know exactly why people hate it. Those who hate it will cite its inability to answer questions or its deceptiveness, and I wouldn’t blame them because those are the reasons I might actually hate this movie, too. However, there’s just something about this one that grabbed me and kept me interested for the duration. There’s a mystery here, mostly because characters on both sides of the argument are so sure are so sure about what’s happening that you really want to believe them. You want to side with the skeptics because that’s what common sense tells you to do anyway, and you’ve got presuppositions about cults anyway. And you want to side with the people all ready to drink the Kool-aide because their leader is hot and they have a really cool secret handshake.
Side note: I’m probably not going to join a cult although I did attend Johnson Bible College (now University) for 3 semesters which is close enough. But if I ever do join a cult, I hope they don’t have a secret handshake because I’m not convinced I’d be able to remember it.
The characters are all so sure of themselves that all the cracks on either side just ooze. It makes it impossible to know what to trust, and Zal Batmanglij (wait a second–Batman with a typo after it?) toys with the audience in a way that, at least for me, didn’t seem to obvious or annoying. The mystery evolved organically, and we get the find out things pretty much when the documentary filmmakers find things out.
This could have easily been yet another found footage affair, and I wonder if it wasn’t planned to be something like that. As much of a fan as I am of the found footage genre (I’m one of the few who isn’t tired of the whole thing), I’m glad this wasn’t. The more-traditional storytelling, even though this doesn’t have a beginning/middle/end that will satisfy most people, worked well. I also credit this with refusing to become something that you might expect it to be. It could have transformed into more of a thriller or even a horror movie; instead, it just kind of remains mysterious.
The acting’s adequate enough to make this all believable enough, and Brit Marling–as the cult leader who may or may not be from the future–comes close to standing out. The control she has over her lines and this character is almost hypnotic, and there’s a great moment where she sings a song by the Cranberries where there’s this alluring vulnerability. It’s one of those cracks that I was talking about earlier, but at the same time, the confidence her character has in the story she’s trying to tell mystifies.
