Sound of My Voice

Reviewed by Marc Glassman

Sound of My Voice

Zal Batmanglij, director and co-script w/Brit Marling

Starring: Christopher Denham (Peter Aitken), Brit Marling (Maggie), Nicole Vicius (Lorna Michaelson), Davenia McFadden (Carol), Richard Wharton (Klaus), Piper Mackenzie Harris (Heidi)

The buzz:
The Indie trio of Mike Cahill, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij has been working on films together since they were undergraduates at Georgetown University. Cahill’s Another Earth and Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice used sci-fi concepts, starred and were co-written with Marling and premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. When Another Earth garnered the Alfred Sloane award for best science-oriented film at Sundance, it got released first, receiving good reviews last year. Now, with anticipation building over a year, Sound of My Voice is arriving at commercial cinemas.

The genres:
Science fiction; thriller about a cult leader; mystery

The premise:
A young, rootless couple—Peter and Lorna—decide to enter a bizarre cult centred on the mysterious Maggie, who claims to come from the future. They want to covertly make a documentary, which will expose Maggie. But as they move deeper into the cult, their motives become blurred, especially after a session in which Maggie pushes Peter into admitting that he was sexually abused as a child.

Lorna realizes that Peter is becoming obsessed with Maggie—probably sexually but certainly emotionally. They fight and are on the verge of breaking up when Lorna meets Carol, a U.S. government agent, who wants to set up a sting operation, in which they can capture Maggie.

Can Lorna convince Peter to give up Maggie? And why does this strange cult leader, supposedly from the future, want to meet Heidi, a little girl that Peter is teaching in his day job?

The answers may be more mysterious than the questions!