To say Compliance is a tough watch is a bit like saying Santa moves about a bit on Christmas Eve. And to make things even worse, it’s not entirely fictional.
If you’re looking for a feel-good or one of the best family movies for the festive season, don’t even think about watching this on one of the best streaming services. But if you’re interested in a gripping and intense thriller about ordinary people doing terrible things, Compliance is one to watch.
The film is based on real-life events that took place in Kentucky back in 2004. There, an 18-year-old McDonald’s employee was detained after someone pretending to be a cop called the branch. The film is a lightly fictionalised version of what turned out to be a terrifying and de-humanizing ordeal for which, thankfully, the real-life perpetrators were punished. Less happily, similar events have also happened elsewhere.
Compliance is a study of how power, even on a small scale, corrupts
The film is at heart a simple one: it’s focused on a single workplace and tells the story of what people in authority can be persuaded to do.
The film has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the best Netflix movies, where reviews include phrases such as “squirmy hell”, “frightening” and “disturbing”. Some reviews really hated it – UK arts magazine The CineSkinny said that “he film ultimately feels exploitative, especially in its schematic selectiveness about what to show or not” – but as the UK Metro newspaper pointed out, “the credulity of this provocative scenario would snap had it not actually happened more than 70 times across 30 US states.”
Newsday described it as “a skillful, sympathetic but unsparing re-enactment of a small-scale atrocity” while the Minneapolis Star Tribune said that its direction exposed “a disturbing and haunting look at what some workers are willing to do in order to follow orders.”
Slate said that “It’s a deeply moral movie about the failure of morality, as grueling to watch as it is necessary”, while Hollywood & Fine said that “if you’re looking for a film that shoves you way out of your comfort zone, this one will do the trick”.
It’s not going to make you fond of the human race or lift you out of seasonal gloom, that’s for sure. But as a provocative piece of film-making it’s undoubtedly effective. As Time Out said: “The movie’s frightening momentum can’t be denied; indeed, it’s the whole point.”