Movie of the Week! (3/10/13-3/16/13)

Compliance (2012)

For this week’s Movie of the Week, I am getting away from the addiction themes and triple feature, Oscar extravaganzas from the past. For this week’s selection, Compliance, I have unintentionally stuck with the work place setting of Josh’s pick, Office Space, from a week ago. Compliance takes place in an Ohio based fast food restaurant by the name of ChickWich. It is a usual busy Friday night at ChickWich for manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) and her staff until the restaurant receives a phone call from the a police officer. It is quickly revealed to the audience, not the individuals at ChickWich, that the person on the other end of the line is not a police officer but a prank caller. This prank caller, posing as Officer Daniels (Pat Healy), informs Sandra that there has been a report by a customer that an employee by the name of Becky (Dreama Walker) had stolen money from their purse. Sandra then takes Becky into a back room to help ‘Officer Daniels’ with his investigation. The more that Sandra and others comply, hints the title, with the bizarre request coming from the prank caller, the harder it becomes to believe what is going on. An important aspect to note though and something that is made clear before the film begins is that it is inspired by true events which you can read about here. This will definitely impact on how you view and think about Compliance. Compliance forces you to think about why people do the things they do and what role authority plays into it. It also becomes impossible not to think about what one’s self would do in this situation and where they would draw the line. Compliance is a film was made for a deep discussion so give it a watch (available on Netflix) and come back for the conversation it desires.