Review of Compliance (2012) by Oz S — 06 Jun 2013

Hostile footsteps greet the ears of audiences everywhere as those that surround them hurriedly leave the cinema. They sat back in their seats just an hour earlier, unsuspectingly working their way through the usual snacks. Craig Zobel's Compliance flickers on the screen, an unenjoyable, slow-paced screenplay based on a true story that many just don't want to believe.

Compliance's opening scenes are light-hearted and even humorous. We watch as employees at fast-food chain Chickwich receive a stern debrief from manager Sandra, following an earlier incident. During one of Chickwich's busiest evenings, Sandra (Ann Dowd) receives a phone call from a police officer informing her that one of her employees has committed a theft. Happy-go-lucky teenager Becky (Dreama Walker) fits the description and agrees to follow Sandra into the back after insisting she is innocence. The officer initially asks Sandra to check Becky's pockets and bag, before informing them both that it will be necessary to strip search Becky in order to avoid arrest and imprisonment. He gives his instructions from the other end of the phone and his authority is respected by almost every person that he demands Sandra bring into the room. What follows is initially believable, but each scene becomes more tense and extreme than the last, until we are left to witness the complete degradation of Becky.

The film was based on a series of scam prank calls received at fast food restaurants in the US, and in particular one in a Kentucky McDonalds in 2004. Other films have previously used real-life incidents and psychological experiments to examine the dark side of human psychology. An obvious comparison is Das Experiment (2001) which was based on the Stanford Prison experiment, a study into conformity which took such a dark turn that it had to be abandoned after only six days. That Compliance provoked such an extreme reaction from audiences in a way that Das Experiment (Or The Experiment, its 2010 American remake) did not is interesting.

There are moments of complete absurdity that will certainly test the audience, resulting in reactions ranging from awkward laughter, to disbelief, to disgust. It is a relief when one employee finally refuses to comply and Chickwich's management comes to what seems a painfully obvious conclusion to the viewer; the call is a hoax.

The final scenes leave the story unraveling hurriedly in comparison to what proceeded. It is difficult to imagine how this story could have been told without provoking the outrage that it did. I felt that more emphasis could have been given to the characters behind the story as they are obvious stereotypes, secondary to the plot; too shallow for us to care all that much about what happens to them. There will be cries of misogyny and exploitation, as you are made to feel like the intelligent, invisible person in the corner of the room, bellowing "stop" at the abuse that takes place.

Zobel makes the fatal error of letting the villain become visible to us. Stepping away from the dark room and allowing us to breathe and reflect not only eliminates the mystery of the caller's identity, but it also distracts from the tension that has been created and allows the scenario to become even more ridiculous as it unfolds.