Sound of My Voice

Sound of My Voice is an ambitious indie feature by writer/director Zal Batmanglij and writer/star Brit Marling about the powerful allure of cult leaders and the deep human need to believe in something beyond oneself. As Maggie, the frail but imposing young woman at the head of a small group of devoted followers, Marling is the main reason to see the film. This is quite a different character from the lead in the other film she co-wrote and starred in this year, Another Earth, and while Maggie is not the main character of Sound of My Voice, the whole film feels like a showcase for her talent. Without Marling’s character and performance, this movie doesn’t rise above its micro-budget, first-time-filmmaker, indie-trappings the way Another Earth does. For every well-crafted sequence, there is an over-written follow-up. The world of the cult is compellingly discovered, but the introduction of two main characters is handled clumsily by an omniscient and totally unnecessary voice-over. The film’s third act is a mixed bag with two new characters introduced just in time to heighten the intrigue, but the film ends on the kind of ambiguous note that makes so many indie movies ultimately unsatisfying.

The ideas in Sound of My Voice are interesting, but they aren’t fully explored and the story doesn’t cover much new ground, especially when compared to this year’s other indie film about the allure and power of cults, Sean Durkin's excellent Martha Marcy May Marlene. Still, there is a lot of potential on display here and Marling certainly has made an auspicious début by showing up at Sundance out of nowhere with two intriguing and eminently releasable features (both were acquired by Fox Searchlight at the festival). She as well as her collaborators are certainly people to watch in the coming years.