Sound of My Voice

Two wannabe doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers attempt­ing to expose a cult leader and her weirdy-beardy apoc­a­lypse group find them­selves drawn deep­er into the organ­i­sa­tion. Mag­gie (Brit Mar­ling) is an enig­mat­ic and gor­geous young woman claim­ing to be a time trav­eller. She spouts the usu­al death and destruc­tion prophe­cies which her acolytes lap up, but is she actu­al­ly telling the truth?

Zal Batmanglij’s debut fea­ture clev­er­ly toys with audi­ence expec­ta­tion to the very end. The cou­ple, Peter and Lor­na, get off on secret­ly film­ing pri­vate cult coun­sel­ing ses­sions, yet their arro­gance gives way to doubt. Lor­na (Nicole Vicius) feels the urge to get out and quit while they’re ahead, where­as Peter (Chris Den­ham) seems hell bent on uncov­er­ing a pro­found real­i­sa­tion or ter­ri­ble fraud. This char­ac­ter dynam­ic: the choice between run­ning away and the grip of a mys­tery allows for an insid­i­ous atmos­phere to build.

As a sci-fi movie, Sound of My Voice is the antithe­sis of the cut-and-dried Hol­ly­wood style genre effort that packs in gigan­tic CG explo­sions, very lit­tle char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion and is cal­i­brat­ed to sat­is­fy a pecu­liar lust for on-screen car­nage. The base desires of the mod­ern block­buster are entire­ly absent here, and instead, Bat­man­glij achieves effec­tive, sub­tle results.

Mar­ling is superb as Mag­gie. One moment she’s all ethe­re­al and kind­ly, and the next, she’s bul­ly­ing her min­ions into a grotesque­ly staged mass vom­it­ing ses­sion. This hor­rif­ic scene con­vinc­ing­ly implies her pow­er comes from manip­u­lat­ing the emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of oth­ers. She might well pose as a prophet, but she’s def­i­nite­ly no saint.

Peter’s ​‘role’ evolves into a clear par­al­lel with famous betray­er Judas Iscar­i­ot. The blos­som­ing rela­tion­ship, too, between Mag­gie and her shady ser­vant is also under­played with a neat fris­son of sex­u­al attrac­tion that again ques­tions how gen­uine or manip­u­la­tive these char­ac­ters can be.

Bat­man­glij, rather than dis­card genre trap­pings, allows them to breathe. The puz­zle of Maggie’s ori­gins is what gives Sound of My Voice plen­ty of nar­ra­tive ten­sion. The final, piv­otal scene, which apes Christ’s betray­al in the gar­den of Geth­semene, is beau­ti­ful­ly han­dled and packed with emo­tion, allow­ing for a fin­ish where fresh uncer­tain­ty blows away the third act’s case for rationality.