From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

My guest, writer-director, Sean Durkin, with his first film,

Martha Marcy May Marlene, won the director award at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

The film is now in general release.

It starts Elizabeth Olson, and it's an interesting look at a young woman fighting to reclaim her soul.

Sean, first, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. And if you can extrapolate a little bit on that rather brief description of the film that I just made.

Yeah, the film follows a young woman, Martha, as she escapes from a commune cult situation.

And she moves back home and tries to pick up her old life living with her sister

and her sister's husband. And while she struggles to communicate and fit into their way of living,

she begins to grow paranoid that the people from the cult are coming after her.

Because one of the things I guess I said to you before is that the way names are used in this movie,

I mean, when she's in the commune or the cult or whatever you like to call it,

her names are said very reassuring way,

is almost kind of a massage with her sister.

It's almost kind of an accusatory thing.

It's kind of a punishment.

Just the way that proper nouns are used is a really interesting part of the characterization in the film.

I never really thought about it beyond the actual naming and what that means is identity

and how Martha relates to that.

But when you brought that up, it was a really interesting point because, and it makes sense

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