Director: Craig Zobel
Writer: Craig Zobel
Starring: Ann Dowd, Dreama
Walker, Pat Healy
Rated: R (language, sexual
content/nudity)
Well damn…It’s not a horror
movie, or a thriller, but I can confidently say that Compliance is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
This movie can be summed up
in three words: worst prank ever. For those of you who don’t know, and that’s
probably many considering this isn’t a very well known film, it takes place
over the course of one winter Friday in Ohio at a fast food restaurant.
Basically, it’s really busy and the manager, middle-aged Sandra (Ann Dowd), is
super stressed. Then, to make matters worse, she receives a phone call from a
supposed Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) who explains to her that a customer complained
that an employee stole money from her purse. The description matches young
cashier, Becky (Dreama Walker), who is then taken to the back and questioned. Now
this is a bit of a spoiler – but not really because every little blurb you’ll
read about the movie says it – but this Officer isn’t actually an officer. Over
the course of the movie, Daniels talks Sandra, and multiple other employees who
help with the situation, through the process while he (apparently) searches
innocent Becky’s house along with a team of other officers. To sum things up,
the investigation and multiple strip searches turn into a horrifying sexual
assault.
Now, if you are like me, when
a movie is really good you don’t want it to end. Well, this is a good movie
you’ll be wanting to end just after twenty minutes of watching it. It is
probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and certainly most alarming.
I’ll start by talking about the first thing I noticed and loved about it: the
visuals. What makes this movie so incredible is how it successfully portrays
real life and people. There is no over acting or unrealistic dialogue, just raw
imagery that embraces the completely ordinary atmosphere. It doesn’t use artsy
camerawork or anything like that, it just shows us a collection of images that are so real
we feel like we are actually in the restaurant with these people. When we are
taken to the back office where Becky is kept for most of the movie, we feel
claustrophobic and that we want nothing more to get out of the room – powerful
stuff…
I mentioned dialogue, which
is another thing I wanted to briefly talk about. As I said, it’s very
non-theatrical. This leads to the actors and their amazing talent; seeing that
they could deliver their simple lines so
well shows us that they are extremely talented. They brought their characters
to life and made them so incredibly believable which makes the audience really
invested in them; the character development is done pretty much completely
through dialogue and body language. That’s not easy to do so kudos to Ann Dowd
and Dreama Walker (and, like, EVERYONE else in the movie). I mean, think about
playing Officer Daniels. When you see the movie, you will, hopefully, feel the
strongest feeling of hatred, disgust, and so many other bad things towards him
and I just can’t imagine playing such a horrible character. It ain’t like
playing Voldemort; this guy is evil. There are points when he laughs at what
he’s doing, or chuckles at the victim’s response to something and I think Pat
Healy delivered his performance so brilliantly.
Now for anyone interested in
music, I’ll talk briefly about the soundtrack, which was beautifully composed
by Heather McIntosh and it’s SO GOOD. The entire score is very heavy on the
cello and it is so freaking haunting – yet, only if you know what’s actually
going on behind it. It fit so perfectly with what was going on on-screen and
added a whole lot to the stress, frustration and overall creep-factor. Not
gonna lie, I bought it on iTunes.
Okay, now not everybody who saw this movie knew that this was based on a true story. I mean it said it in the beginning of the film but let’s be honest with ourselves, when we see that we just sort of go, “yeah okay…” But I did a lot of research and was not so happy at all to discover that this movie is, in fact, based on one true event that took place in Mount Washington, Kentucky and the movie was pretty damn accurate. (See the links at the bottom for the complete story). So because people weren’t aware of how accurate this movie actually was, there was a whole lot of controversy. In fact, after the Sundance premiere during a Q&A session with the cast, many people expressed some very negative opinions. One, however, caught my attention. Dreama Walker (Becky) was the first to talk and said, “It’s not meant to be appealing.” (Completely agree). Directly following her comment, one guy had the nerve to shout, “Your body’s pretty appealing!” And then that sparked a whole argument…I don’t know this guy, I don’t know his name or anything, but I'll just say I don't agree with him at all.
Alright, so the film is rated
R partially for nudity. Dreama Walker, an attractive young actress, happens to
have a nice-looking body. Let me make it clear, because I didn’t before, that
this guy’s argument was basically that the nudity was gratuitous and used
simply to get more people to watch the movie – something many filmmakers are
guilty of doing. But in this case we have to remember that this actually happened and compared to
reality, I’m sure they toned it down a
lot. Ashlee Atkinson, who played a restaurant worker in the film, retorted
with an answer that pretty much sums up how I feel. She said, “So because
Dreama’s body is attractive she’s not allowed to portray a victim?” Thank you! Also might I point out that when we see
someone get sexually assaulted, even if it’s on screen, the first thing we
notice or think about is not how hot
the victim’s body is. In fact, that’s probably, and hopefully, the last thing
someone would pay attention to because that’s just messed up. When this
actually happened, and there’s footage of it, the victim was not wearing
clothing. I don’t think the nudity wasn’t gratuitous, it only portrayed the
terrifying truth of what actually happened by not sugar-coating it. She could
have been wearing an Eskimo suit – and yeah it would have still been really
scary – but seeing it depicted in such a real way made it so frightening that
after watching it I, myself, felt exposed and terrified.
Ugh. I respect that guy for standing up for what he believed but I
had to go ahead and disagree. I’m not one to judge so please don’t be
discouraged when watching this movie to have your own opinion about the nudity
or anything else.
To sum things up I thought Compliance was absolutely brilliant and
powerful. But you should know, also, that over seventy similar incidents
occurred in the United States and I think viewers of the film owe it to all of
the victims to get the full true story of what actually happened so here are a
few links that offer a more in depth description of the true story of the Mount
Washington Scam.
LINKS:
2. Wikipedia page “Mount
Washington Scam:” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_phone_call_scam#The_Mount_Washington_scam
3. YouTube Sundance Q&A
Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x46H38Kh
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