'Compliance'

• SXSW Film

  Daily reviews and interviews

• The Dissolution of the First Family of Football

  BY MARK FAGAN

• Fab Four Restored

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• Killin' It

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• What's Yours Is Mine

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• 'Beware of Mr. Baker'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Charles Bradley: Soul of America'

  BY AMY SMITH

• 'Fat Kid Rules the World'

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• 'Keyhole'

  BY ANDY CAMPBELL

• 'God Bless America'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Dollhouse'

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• 'Compliance'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Black Pond'

  BY MONICA RIESE

• 'Dreams of a Life'

  BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER

• 'The Comedy'

  BY ASHLEY MORENO

• 'Beast'

  BY JOE O'CONNELL

• Music Video Competition

  BY KATE X MESSER

• 'Thale'

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

Compliance

Craig Zobel's controversial film is based on true incidents, although the filmmaker seems to draw greater inspiration from Stanley Milgram's famous social experiments concerning the link between obedience and authority. In his study, the majority of Milgram's participants (depressingly) inflicted physical harm on other individuals when instructed to do so by a blame-accepting authority figure. These experiments helped explain the Nazi phenomenon, but they also help make sense of the hideous events that occur in this movie's suburban Ohio fast-food joint. To reveal too much will ruin whatever suspense the movie holds, especially for those unfamiliar with the distressing results of Milgram's experiment. And that becomes the paradox of Compliance: The film is absolutely riveting while at the same time consistently repetitive, upping the stakes with each new character drawn into the travesty but never really moving the bar. The performances by Ann Dowd and Dreama Walker are superlative and are intrinsic to maintaining viewers' fascination with the characters' outcomes.

Saturday, March 17, 6:30pm, Alamo Lamar