M Is for Martha Marcy May Marlene and Muriel Brandolini
Celebrating Elizabeth Olsen's Movie and a Design Legend's Book
Martha Marcy May Marlene—trying saying it three times fast and you'll have your tongue tied for sure. The Sean Durkin-directed movie, which made its debut last night at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, is just as perplexing and twisted as its name. Elizabeth Olsen stars alongside John Hawkes and Hugh Dancy as Martha, a young woman who has managed to escape a cultlike rural farming community but still suffers from the memories.
"The first day of shooting was [my character] running into the hills, and I knew we didn't have anyone on walkies but I kept running into thorn bushes—I had scratches everywhere, but it was funny," Olsen told Style.com of the small-budget film shot in four weeks. That was just one of several war wounds incurred on set: Dancy recalled "a wonderful day of shooting on the boat until we all realized we forgot sunscreen, so we turned a wonderful shade of puce." Of Olsen, he said, "I don't want to be patronizing, but Lizzie is young and this is her first major role, and she somehow knew exactly what to do."
After the screening, Olsen and her twin sisters, along with Terry Richardson, Parker Posey, and Chase Crawford, filtered over to the nearby Empire Hotel to party. Across town at Barneys, Uma Thurman, host James de Givenchy, Vanessa Traina, Maxwell Snow, and Nate Berkus gathered to fête Muriel Brandolini's new book. As guests made themselves at home among the hand-beaded pillows and the $13,750 rugs in the Brandolini-outfitted room, the woman of the hour signed limited-edition copies of her tome and offered these words of design wisdom: "Live free, just be observant, and just be yourself—it's the only way to do it."
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