Compliance
Directed by Craig Zobel
Written by Craig Zobel
with Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy
2012
Stanley Milgram’s investigations into obedience to authority, referenced at the beginning of this film, don’t paint us in the most flattering light. Performed in the wake of trials of Nazi war criminals, they revealed some uncomfortable truths about the malleability of people in the right situation. Yet Craig Zobel of Compliance makes no further direct reference to Milgram; the story he tells is based on real events so odd he needs scientific evidence to back up the claim that “Nothing has been exaggerated”.
It is Friday evening at ChickWich, and general manager Sandra is preparing her unenthusiastic workforce for a busy evening. Slightly understaffed, and with supplies of various ingredients running low, her patience is fraying when the store receives a phonecall from a man claiming to be a police officer. He says he has a ChickWich customer with him who has accused one of the staff, a pretty 19-year old called Becky, of stealing from her purse while it was resting on the counter. He asks Sandra to detain Becky until the police can come and pick her up. Distracted, rushed off her feet and dismayed at the idea of having to do without a further member of staff, Sandra is cajoled, flattered, and gently threatened into complying with each of the voice’s instructions, even as they get increasingly odd.
Compliance runs on understated, detailed performances, and a script that sounds completely natural despite a lot of effort clearly having gone into accurately representing the ways such a manipulation would work. To be completely honest, I’m not sure how believable I would have found it had I not been assured it was based on real events before the film had even started. But throughout, even as you are despairing of some people’s idiocy, and wishing you could intervene and ask a few simple questions to reveal the deceit, the actions of the victims never go as far as striking a false note. Though of course mainly due to the skill of the actors (especially Ann Dowd as Sandra), it also has a lot to do with the sheer amount of detail Zobel has managed to fit into the script. Had he simply inserted as much psychological research as possible the film would have come across as dry and over-scientific, but he has taken the trouble to draw rounded characters, whose quirks and personal resentments believably inform their actions, and occasionally point you in the wrong direction as to how you think they might react to the anonymous authority. It results in a captivating yet uncomfortable psychological drama; you might watch with a growing sense of disbelief, but it will be disbelief not in the film itself, but in what people are capable - or sometimes incapable - of.
Tom
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