No one wants to believe they’d be susceptible to the machinations of a cult. And it’s easy to feel that way when you’re watching events unfold from a safe distance. Be it a painstakingly researched documentary, or a TV show where characters get manipulated by a narcissistic leader, media offers detachment — an omnipotent view of what’s really going on. But on the inside, without that hindsight, it must feel very different. 2011’s Sound of My Voice, directed by Zal Batmanglij and written by Batmanglij, Abdulkadir Güngörand, and star Brit Marling, aims to show just how murky those waters can be.
Sound of My Voice follows Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius), documentary filmmakers and romantic partners, as they attempt to infiltrate a cult. We’re dumped into the story already in progress, and before we know anything about the cult, we see the lengths the couple are asked to go — scrubbing themselves clean and donning white medical gowns before being zip-tied in the back of a van. These are extreme measures, but they’re justified because the cult’s leader is very frail and any precautions are meant to keep her safe. At least that’s what Peter and Lorna are told as they’re whisked down to the basement of an abandoned house with a handful of other recruits.
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At this stage, before they’ve met the elusive leader who’s taught her followers a bizarre secret handshake, Peter and Lorna are united in their lack of belief. The group is a cult and the woman at its head a charlatan. That is, until they meet her. Maggie (Marling) is an ethereal figure; big-eyed and tethered to an oxygen tank, she cuts an impressive figure. And sitting cross-legged on the floor of a random house in the valley, she tells them her story.
Maggie claims to be from the future – 2054, specifically. She points to a tattoo of an anchor and the number 54 on her ankle as proof. She tells a harrowing tale of waking up in a bathtub then wandering the streets of Los Angeles draped only in a sheet before being rescued by one of her followers, Klaus. Her origin story is deeply tragic but wholly unbelievable, unless you’re open to the possibility there are things beyond basic human understanding — that time travel could be real.
How else would Maggie be able to share such clear knowledge of the near future? Her tomorrow is a dreadful place where famine and war have ravaged the world, and she just wants to help her small group of followers survive what’s surely coming. But she can’t fully walk in the world. She must stay hidden away because the food, air, and bacteria of our time is so foreign, hence the home-grown produce and constant blood transfusions. There’s an answer — a reason — for everything Maggie and the group do.
At first, despite Maggie’s bewitching presence and stern certainty, it seems both Lorna and Peter don’t buy any of it. It’s a cult, per their own classification, and thus everything being presented is a perfectly curated image not to be trusted — a well-constructed and manipulative series of lies. But after Peter refuses to throw up during a group vomiting exercise, a high-tension affair requiring full compliance, Maggie coaches him through some past trauma. The reason he didn’t want to puke was because he’d just swallowed a transmitter for their secret filming. But after Maggie’s intensely focused prodding, he winds up unloading not just vomit, but a heap of emotional baggage tied to the death of his mother. Afterwards, Peter acknowledges that Maggie was asking leading questions, not really predicting his answers or providing real insight — more charlatan cult leader antics. But even as he says it, it’s clear he’s beginning to believe her.
As their embedment with the group continues, Lorna becomes more suspicious as Peter gets further entrenched. Maggie begins taking special interest in him, while Lorna is approached by an agent who says she’s from the Justice Department. She tells Lorna that Maggie’s a wanted felon using a fake name and hiding from the law. Without much evidence, Lorna believes it and agrees to help set Maggie up. At the same time, Peter is asked to bring one of the students he teaches, Abigail, to Maggie. Because the out-of-time Maggie claims the eight-year-old girl is her mother. The couple, both armed with their own secrets and agendas, decide to set up a meeting between the girl and Maggie during a field trip chaperoned by Peter.
In a darkened corner, Maggie and the young girl exchange timid but familiar greetings. The usually shy and “weird” Abigail seems to immediately take to Maggie, inexplicably doing the group’s secret handshake without prompting. When Abigail asks how Maggie knew her handshake, the handshake the group’s been doing the entire film, Maggie simply says, “You taught me.” There’s barely time to process the interaction before the cops swoop in to scoop Maggie up. Once she’s gone, Lorna asks, “Who was she?” Peter says he doesn’t know, but his knowing smile and protective grip on Abigail says differently: Peter is a believer.
How did Maggie learn the handshake? Was eight-year-old Abigail really the time traveler’s mother? Is any of what Maggie said real? Sound of My Voice is intentionally vague and filled with so many questions and unpulled threads it’s almost frustrating. But I think that’s the point. The cult is presented with such matter-of-fact neutrality that the story never takes a firm stance. Instead, Sound of My Voice uses its cool, indie film indifference to subtly force the viewer into taking a side. Like the cult itself, any preconceived notions or biases are preyed on and manipulated, creating an unlikely “choose your own adventure” story that changes depending on what you bring to the table.
It’s exactly the same for the members inside the cult – all they see is Maggie’s magic. Her intense stare and flippant responses beg to be believed. She’s a deeply charismatic person whose fearmongering was rooted in reality — even in 2011, famine and war weren’t unfounded concerns. And her promises, that the small group would be safe and protected, not only played on their fears, but made them feel special. Maggie was their anchor in a mad world only getting worse. And for that reason, they clung to her. Believed her.
Once the documentary team gets inside, Sound of My Voice becomes something else entirely. The barely perceptible indoctrination changes everything, from the tenets of reality, to the story itself. Maggie asked her group to believe unprovable things. Like many cult leaders, she required a level of faith that feels unreachable from the outside. But Peter, a smart man with the knowledge he was likely being deceived, still believed her. He watched Maggie and Abigail’s handshake and saw the impossible. He joined the cult.
Sound of My Voice presents two possible reads of a story: a con artist conned people, or, a woman traveled from the future. The poetry here is that compelling arguments can be made in either direction. What Sound of My Voice attempts is fascinating, essentially indoctrinating the viewer alongside Peter and Lorna, testing the waters to see just how susceptible one may be. Your level of buy-in on the cult itself, and Maggie, as its leader, has a dramatic impact on how the story plays out. It’s up to the viewer to decide if any of it’s real — all you have to do is believe.
