In the second act, The Journey, she hitches a ride on the local bus where she encounters the pregnant Novi, on the way to find her jealous husband Umbu before she delivers.

The police accept the report but insist that they can't proceed for at least a month while they wait for funds to purchase rape test equipment.

He, believing that a breech baby is a sign of infidelity, hits her and leaves her to be found by Franz, who threatens her into luring Marlina back to the house.

While serving in the jury panel of the 34th Citra Awards in 2014, Garin Nugroho approached Surya at a screening with the story treatment he had for the film.

[18][19] By the end of its domestic theatrical run, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts recorded 154 thousand admissions, making it Surya's most commercially successful project to date.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Subversive, gorgeously shot, and suitably visceral, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts injects timely feminist themes into a neo-western grindhouse framework.

[24][25][26] Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times praised the film for "eschew[ing] excess gore and mayhem, largely making its points in more subtly incisive ways.

[27] In a 3-star review, Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com singled out the film's "confident eloquence of the staging, framing and editing" and noted that "the story is essentially a revenge fantasy like many another, but its feminist slant never feels rhetorical or heavy-handed.

"[28] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "an unwavering slow burn" and praised Surya who "smartly foregrounds all that comeliness and every so often folds in a long shot that turns the characters into doll-like figures, a downsizing that gestures toward a nature vs. culture dynamic.

"[29] Writing for The Jakarta Post, Stanley Widianto called the film "one hell of a ride" while noting its inspired take on the "spaghetti western trope".