James Dempsey: Not the sort of film you'd expect from the youngest of the Olsen sisters
Elizabeth Olsen
TODAY marks the release of Martha Marcy May Marlene, the dark and twisted tale of a young woman’s escape from a violent sect that took Sundance by storm last year and has already made a cult star out of its beguiling heroine, Elizabeth Olsen.
The film, from writer-director Sean Durkin, sees the multi-named mainstay struggle with rebuilding her family life and sanity, all the while coming to terms with her painful memories and deepening paranoia. A chilling psychological thriller, Olsen’s Martha makes for the best kind of uncomfortable viewing, tense and unsettling in lingering scenes of menace and manipulation. Her performance is pitch perfect, dominating the film and will haunt you for days.
Not, perhaps, what you would expect from the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley.
Yes indeed, she’s that Olsen. Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Elizabeth is none-other than the little sister of the much-publicised Olsen twins. Famed child stars whose teenage billion-dollar branding success gave way to careers posing on red carpets wearing over-sized furs and manic stares, Mary-Kate and Ashley are an American institution, even with occasional bouts of institutionalisation.
But from nowhere, bar a 1994 credit as “Girl in Car” in the vehicle How the West was Fun – a straight-to-video caper for her sisters’ burgeoning stardom - Elizabeth has emerged from the shadows as the Olsen of note, and the only one worth watching. Six movie releases in the next two years, not to mention a place on the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue 2012 cover, shot by the icon-defining Mario Testino and surrounded by the who’s who of cinema’s new leading ladies.
Though not all that surprising really, what with 2012 fast becoming the year of the tinsel town sibling.
The Hollywood Hills have always been a fertile spawning ground for celebrity brethren, with a real suggestion that the acting bug flows in the blood. John and Joan Cusack, Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeff and Beau Bridges, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, Ben and Casey Affleck. And they’re only the successful ones.
Riding the coattails of a critically-acclaimed brother or paparazzi-snapped sister is not exactly a recipe for overnight fame. Just look at Daniel Baldwin, younger brother of Alec and fading into obscurity behind his TV-starring brothers Billy and Daniel. His biggest hit to date, a short-lived stint on Celebrity Rehab. Or Alexis Arquette, born Robert, the transgender sister of Rosanna, Patricia, David and Richmond, best known for a string of bit parts and a career on the cabaret circuit.
Perhaps the most iconic case of a sibling falling foul of their famous family lies with the Marx brother Zeppo, whose name has now become synonymous in pop culture with “the one that doesn’t matter”. Essentially forced into playing the straight man to his brothers’ wisecracking antics, Zeppo ultimately was axed from the line-up after only five films, despite Groucho describing him as “the funniest one of us”.
But just looking at the first three months of this year, already a trend of limelight-stealing family ties can be seen. In addition to Elizabeth Olsen’s star-making turn in Martha Marcy May Marlene, two other Hollywood siblings are snapping their whippers at the heels of A-list relatives.
March will see the release of We Bought a Zoo, starring Dakota Fanning’s younger sister Elle, already a critical darling after last summer’s sci-fi family pleaser Super 8 and soon to be seen in Francis Ford Coppola’s pet-project Twixt. While Dakota’s path from child to grown-up star hasn’t been a smooth transition, Elle looks set to be propelled to greater fame, not bad considering her earliest screen credit was playing the toddler incarnation of her older sister at the age of 2 years, 11 months.
And 21 Jump Street will see Dave Franco, brother of actor/director/writer/professor/self-proclaimed-renaissance-man James Franco, garnering some serious attention, having already racked up a number of hilarious videos on the celeb-studded humour site Funny or Die.
Whether these actors can genuinely overtake their brothers or sisters remains to be seen, but, at the very least, should offer up some interesting sibling rivalry.
