Dreama Walker plays Becky in Compliance, the new-to-DVD film–a film that induces shudders and pushes buttons to make viewers angry, surprised, and disgusted at how complicit everyone in the movie became. Anger and sadness mixing, people can be so awful to each other.
Compliance is a psychological study of perversion carried out by gullible people who are directed by someone acting as an authority figure. The movie may exaggerate some of the true cases the film is based on–one can hope. The film begins with a shortage at a fast food chicken restaurant. How will they cope during the busy rush hour? There’s very little bacon or pickles left, a very mundane problem, but this calamity brings tension into the film early on. The manager, played by a terrific Ann Dowd, always wants to do the right thing, and she’s saddled in the middle between what upper management wants, and what is available to her through the underlings who do her bidding. The film is very good at setting the structure of the business operation and making the characters, and their separate motivations, colorful. The manager will always remain a separate force in the store; she cannot be a true friend to her coworkers because she is their boss, but that doesn’t stop her from yearning to be included as such. When Officer Daniels (played by Pat Healy) calls, all of the characters are already in a stressful state of mind, and easy for Officer Daniels to manipulate.
Dreama Walker, an actress in the sitcom Don’t Trust the B—- From Apartment 23, is natural enough to make anyone believe the choices she makes, and they are heartbreaking. One of the reasons I am singling Compliance out for viewing, even though watching it is psychologically disturbing due to its factual relevance, is the acting. The prank portrayed in Compliance has happened. 20/20 covered the story. The players are believable as real people; the film walks that documentary line, showing the ugly side of life. While there is artistry in the direction, there is also no exploitation; how the camera dwells on the garbage on the ground outside the fast food restaurant mirrors the ugliness happening within–how we try to keep horrible acts hidden away. Craig Zobel is a director to watch.
Plot Summary: At a fast food restaurant, the manager, Sandra, is having a bad day. Suddenly, she gets a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer who has a complaint that one of her young female employees has stolen from a customer. At the orders of this authoritative sounding stranger, Sandra takes the apparent accused, Becky, to a back room to search her before she is picked up. Once there, the phone scammer manipulates the gullible personnel into participating in Becky’s sexual humiliation that grows more twisted with every new sucker on the phone. Only when one final person has the conscience to revolt do they realize the crime they were tricked into, which the real police are hard pressed to solve. This plot summary was written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
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Yes, I looked at this last week, but wasn’t sure that I wanted to watch it, I think I will now; sounds intriguing.
It’s intriguing as a psychological suspense film, but the horror of the situation makes it sad. I like to write, as you know well, about that moment of psychological drama and epiphany.
I wish I could say that I was surprised at the level of compliance in this situation, it says so much about the ignorance and gullibility of certain echelons, as well as the clever manipulative skills of others. And neither was I surprised at the apparent willingness, in the end, for the girl and her ‘guard’, to do what they did; giving into the most primitive of nature, the situation having turned into something else completely by that point – which I’m sure, even they knew, was suspect. The one line that stuck with me, unless I misunderstood it, was the little girl saying that Grandpa only has one pocket. Wow! And yes, Ann Dowd was terrific, entirely believable. Compliance right up until the end, the voice from the audience, or whatever, still needing to point out her rights to her, and the weather in New Orleans thing was a great finish – said so much to highlight the mentality of these characters overall. I enjoyed it.
What is so sad to me is that there were 70 cases documented before the film was created. Probably more now. I hope the film warns someone out there.
I’m sure it will; actually I thought after I watched it, that perhaps, for these kinds of people perhaps not au fait with the rules of society, it would be a great way to make them more aware of their basic rights and how things are done – but then I thought, well… wouldn’t they, shouldn’t they… have known that from any amount of cop shows they might ever have watched. Mind blowing really. Anyway, thanks for the recommendation.
You’re very welcome, S. Not too long ago, but far enough in the past to make me nostalgic, I taught a course at a university on the theme of “obedience to authority.” The way people follow authority figures in all walks of life, from simple relationships where there is a provider or breadwinner, where that person’s word is not to be challenged, to the extreme examples of dictators, and many places in between, Compliance hits that same stressful tone–why do people follow orders in bizarre situations? Why can’t they see? I remember showing the John Carpenter science fiction film They Live to the class: OBEY!