Review: Compliance (15)

The call comes from Officer Daniels. Soon manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) is obeying instructions to separate lowly worker Becky (Dreama Walker), confine her in a back room, search her and await further instructions.

But when the situation escalates – Sandra is instructed by phone that she must perform a strip search – both manager and worker find their day taking a turn for the surreal and the sinister.

At the heart of Zobel’s film is a simple question: if this happened to you, how would you react? “I’m just trying to do my job,” says Sandra at one point. But when does job security replace common humanity? And when does an employee become a drone – a puppet to be controlled and deceived? The undercurrent is one of maturity versus youth, plausibility versus gullibility.

Sandra, lacking in self-confidence and assurance, lacking the respect of her young staff, desperate for acceptance, submissive and non-confrontational, is a prime candidate for manipulation.

Zobel dares to ask his audience how it would react. Submit? Say no? Stand up to the voice of authority? He succeeds in creating a quiet sense of panic among ordinary folk who dare not tangle with the law, leaving open the suggestion that anything can happen. And it does. Resembling a theatre piece – a small set, a villain largely heard but not often seen, a tight ensemble – Compliance is all about psychological humiliation. When does compliance become wish fulfilment, fantasy, perversity?

In this film, everyone is a victim.

On staggered release