Elizabeth Olsen makes guarded people readable without making them easy company. We rate her most when she lets the strain show through ordinary exchanges, as she does in Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Fi1m perspective
In Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), Elizabeth Olsen’s Martha can seem indifferent to the family trying to accommodate her. Then we notice the effort it takes her to maintain that guarded manner. Olsen lets us understand why Lucy struggles with Martha without deciding that Martha ought simply to try harder. We found these domestic scenes painful because settling back into family life seems to ask more of her than she can manage. We recommend the film chiefly for that performance, even when its structure becomes overworked.
That breakthrough was followed by a career divided between independent films and the continuing role of Wanda Maximoff, also known as Scarlet Witch. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) belongs to the latter strand, while Wind River (2017) gave her the independent thriller role of Jane Banner. WandaVision (2021), alongside Paul Bettany, made more varied demands, moving the same character between sitcom and drama. Olsen’s ability to keep the feeling consistent through those changes gives us a reason to follow her through them.
Sean Durkin gives her particularly useful conditions in Martha Marcy May Marlene. He keeps Martha’s escape from a cult close to her memories of it, so that the lake house never becomes somewhere we can relax. Olsen does not have to announce the danger; her difficulty settling there helps ordinary surroundings feel threatening. The repeated changes of time and place can become too easy to anticipate, but her performance keeps Martha convincing when the film’s structure starts to feel overworked.
The reservation about this kind of acting is that a character can stay so guarded that we stop caring. Olsen’s Martha avoids that problem because the effort of getting through domestic life remains clear, even when her behaviour is difficult. We would welcome more parts that trust her to leave both impressions with us, and directors prepared to let another character’s impatience seem reasonable. Start with Durkin’s film, provided an unsettled evening is what you had in mind.
Biography
Elizabeth Olsen is an American actress. She made her film debut in the title role of the 2011 thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene.
The younger sister of actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, she began acting as a child. Olsen studied drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated in 2013.
She is known for portraying Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) and the series WandaVision (2021). Other credits include Godzilla (2014) and Wind River (2017).
