Elizabeth Olsen is a fixture in modern Hollywood these days. Not only does she have a high-profile recurring superhero role as Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but she is also regarded as one of her generations strongest talents, with acclaimed performances in films like Ingrid Goes West and Sorry for Your Loss.
Unlike a lot of stars in similar positions, Olsen’s arrival as a name to watch in Hollywood came almost all at once. While her obvious familial connections can’t be discounted, she also had the good fortune to debut with a stellar lead role.
Elizabeth Olsen’s first film debuted at Sundance 2011
For starters, we’re not strictly talking about Olsen’s first appearance in any film ever. That would be her appearance as “Girl in Car” in the 1994 TV movie, How the West Was Fun, starring her older sisters, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. It was little more than a cameo and didn’t lead into a proper career as a child actress. After another cameo on Full House in 1995, Olsen didn’t appear in anything for 16 years, when she began her proper career as an adult.
Olsen first two films actually debuted around the same time at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Despite this, the mostly forgotten horror remake Silent House didn’t make it to theaters until 2012. The first of Olsen’s films to hit theaters and introduce her to the filmgoing audience at large was Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Directed by Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene casts Olsen as Martha (though she will go by each name from the title throughout the film), a woman who, at the start of the film, makes her escape from a shady and mysterious cult. The story cuts between two timeframes, showing Martha’s time in the cult and the time after her escape when she begins exhibiting signs of severe trauma while reuniting with her sister (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law (Hugh Dancy).
For an audience more attuned to Olsen’s work in the bombastic MCU, Martha Marcy May Marlene might be a bit too far into arthouse territory, with its incredibly subdued and methodical atmosphere. The film isn’t so much interested in typical narrative structures and payoffs as it is in exploring a character in a debilitating state of trauma. In a weird way, that makes the film something of a piece with WandaVision.
‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ got rave reviews and awards buzz
Martha Marcy May Marlene now boasts a strong 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with almost everyone agreeing that Olsen was a revelation in her first role. Though it didn’t end up nabbing her a nomination for Best Actress at the Oscar, there was serious buzz around her odds at the time.
“Elizabeth Olsen, a sister of the Olsen twins, is a genuine discovery here,” the late Roger Ebert wrote. “Childlike and yet deep, vulnerable but with a developing will, beautiful in a natural and unforced way… She has a wide range of emotions to deal with here, and in her first major role, she seems instinctively to know how to do that.”
“Olsen ably juggles this tricky role, which depends so heavily on the character’s between-the-lines personal history,” Variety’s Peter Debruge wrote.
Source: Read Full Article
