Mesmerizing 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

Elizabeth Olsen manages two impressive disappearing acts in the mesmerizing, unsettling drama "Martha Marcy May Marlene." One is her riveting performance as a former cult member almost completely stripped of her identity. The other is making us forget that she's the little sister of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, youth-market icons whose own cult of celebrity might have overshadowed a lesser actress.

But Olsen is a marvel in her feature-film debut, perfectly embodying the quadrophenia suggested by the title. Olsen plays Martha, first seen tiptoeing out of an upstate New York farmhouse and bolting into the woods. She ends up at the expansive Connecticut summer house of her wealthy sister, Lucy (an excellent Sarah Paulson), and her irritable husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy), an architect with little use for damaged constructs. It's a safe haven, though not for long.

What follows is a complex latticework of Martha's memories and present-day reality, artfully woven together by director Sean Durkin, also making his feature debut. Through Martha's eyes, we meet the ruggedly handsome cult leader Patrick, played with tingly charisma by John Hawkes ("Winter's Bone"). He plays guitar (two songs come from the late folkie Jackson C. Frank, himself something of a cult item), but his real talents lie in orchestrating group sex and violence. We also come to realize that Lucy and Ted, though well-meaning, are control freaks of a different kind.

The simmering tension in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" never quite comes to a head, though that may be the point. A character study that feels like a thriller, it subtly connects each dot in Martha's transformation from luminous young beauty to walking vacuum. It's also an exciting introduction to Olsen and Durkin, whose first film is one of the best this year.

PLOT Fleeing from a violent cult, a young woman hides at her wealthy sister's house. RATING (language, violence, sexuality)

CAST Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson

LENGTH 1:41

PLAYING AT Regal Farmingdale 10; Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington; Malverne Cinema 4; Manhasset Cinemas and Roosevelt Raceway, Westbury

BOTTOM LINE Mesmerizing and unsettling, with an unexpectedly riveting performance from Ashley and Mary-Kate's sister