‘That man’s asking me to do things that ain’t right…’
Compliance is a fascinating subject. Just how far will a person go in the name of following orders. Various studies have been carried out in this area, most notably the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Obedience Experiment, but the true answer lies within all of us. Like anyone, I’d like to think that my own moral compass would override any authority, but until someone is actually in that situation, it’s impossible to say. Craig Zobel’s fascinating film takes the unbelievable and tragic story of the Mount Washington scam and runs with it all the way…
Becky (Dreama Walker) is a seemingly normal young woman working a seemingly normal shift in a burger joint. When someone claiming to be a police officer (Pat Healy) calls the restaurant and claims that Becky has stolen some money and therefore needs to be detained and strip searched, Sandra (Ann Dowd), her boss, is only too happy to comply. But just how far will she go?
Since this movie was released back in 2013, both Dowd and Bill Camp (who plays Sandra’s fiancee Van here) have both become ubiquitous in feature films and prestige television. This only casts Compliance in an even more appealing light with the benefit of hindsight. As this story is so preposterous (and yet, unbelievably, all completely true) the authenticity of the casting would be key, and both Dowd and Camp do a great job in selling the unlikely premise that unfolds before us. Walker is great too as the girl at the centre of the film managing to convey heartbreak and mortifying embarrassment without resorting to melodrama.
Compliance asks difficult questions of its audience, and also stands as a warning – this is what can happen when good people do nothing. It’s insane to think that this actually happened, not just once, but at least thirty times over a period of thirty years. The world is a terrible, but captivating, place.