Nobody but nobody is going to remember the title of Sean Durkin‘s Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox Searchlight, 10.7.11). They’re going to call it “Martha May Mary…something.” Yes, the word-of-mouth will be very good and it’ll be necessary for everyone to carefully inspect Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of the Loathsome Twins.

But there’s still the matter of that ending, and Durkin really needs to fix it over the next two or three months. This is a movie about a malevolent cult and residual brainwashing and suppressing bad memories. It ends with the bad guys coming back into the world of the protagonist. Except, as I said during Sundance ’11, “the mildly creepy finale hints at what might be happening — maybe, sorta kinda, probably — but it leaves you up in the air and scratching your head. I walked out saying to myself, ‘Wait…what happened?'”