Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts

Director Mouly Surya’s unwavering conviction in her material (co-written with Rama Adi and Garin Nugroho) and her star – Marsha Timothy plays Marlina as fearful and indignant but ever composed – create a film that is simultaneously charming and grisly.

At once tightly controlled and simmering with righteous fury, it’s gorgeously lensed, atmospherically scored and moves inexorably toward a gratifying payoff.

With a Morricone-inspired score, gorgeous cinematography that screams to be witnessed on a big screen, and bleak humor, this film’s tightly executed, meticulously controlled surface barely contains the seething fury within.

Rather than epic or thrilling, justice becomes an errand, an extension of domestic work.

The whole thing is handled with sly wit as well as unfailing stylistic smarts, which makes for a very satisfying package.

The film is enlivened by an acute grasp of the impossibilities that abused Indonesian women face in a society predicated on their continued physical and emotional subjugation to men.

Eventually, the drama closes in on itself and attains the logic of a dream, though a dream that dissipates quickly on waking.