Compliance Review from SXSW and Sundance

The idea that anyone would follow the orders of a disembodied voice on a phone, no matter how they identified themselves, is terrifying to me, but “Compliance” earns its awful power from the restrained way it paints its picture. I’ve seen the “20/20″ piece that inspired the film since I saw the movie, and it shocks me how closely Zobel played it to reality. He never feels the need to turn things up for the sake of drama. Instead, he stays very close to the beat-for-beat reality of how it played out, and that seems somehow worse. I’d like to believe Zobel is exaggerating Sandra’s mistake, but it does not appear to be the case.

Ann Dowd is very good in the film, as is Dreama Walker, who takes a seriously difficult and unpleasant role and manages to find the bruised dignity in Becky’s responses. [...]

Technically, the film maintains a cool clinical sense of remove, almost like we’re watching impressively photographed surveillance footage. The score by Heather McIntosh and the editing by Jane Rizzo perfectly complement Adam Stone’s cinematography, and the result is something special, something I won’t be able to easily shake. “Compliance” scares me more than most horror films because this film dares to look into the flawed heart of most human beings and find them wanting, a message that offers no easy antidote.

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#03 – Compliance

There’s just something about movies that only have 1 or 2 locations that is just so damn interesting (see London or Carnage). It forces Directors such as Craig Zobel to abandon their gimmicky airplane and SFX shots (Michael Bay), and requires that they for once exercise that little brain muscle used for narrative storytelling. The end result is remarkably compelling film that is at times so patently absurd, you almost can’t believe the events truly happened. Dreama Walker (Gossip Girl, Gran Torino), and Pat Healy (Rescue Dawn, The Innkeepers) put forth some of the best performances of their careers, and Director Craig Zobel goes 2-0.

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