Compliance (2012)

First screened at Sundance over a year ago, Compliance only made it to UK screens last Friday and is unlikely to linger thereon far past next Friday before sliding off onto DVD. Based on a series of real-life incidents across America, it depicts the ordeal of a fast food restaurant employee (Dreama Walker) when she is accused of stealing by the ‘policeman’ who rings her place of work.

Sandra (Ann Dowd) is the manager of the restaurant taking directions from the man we find out very quickly is a prank caller. She and her staff are, at every step, convinced to carry out the ‘police procedures’ dictated by the caller whose demands become increasingly disturbing as the ordeal continues.

It begins in a typically indie-serious manner with a series of still life shots (a shopping trolley, a stack of boxes, some pans) underscored by a driving cello ostinato. As the characters are introduced and the situation set up, it has the awkward feel of a sort of GCSE Psychology educational drama made to teach students how conformity works. Maybe this is because I knew what was coming but so does everyone – the film’s plot is detailed in its synopsis.

One major gripe of a great number of people who have seen the film is how unrealistic it seems that everyone at the restaurant complies with the caller, with no proof that he is a genuine officer of the law, to the extent that the innocent girl, Becky, is thoroughly humiliated and plainly abused.

Director Craig Zobel of course can, and does, hide behind the true story that inspired his film. Speaking on Radio 5live, he explained its partly negative reception at Sundance last year:

‘Everyone’s reactions, when they hear these stories is, “well I would never do that, I would never listen, I would know it was a fake” yet it happens all the time… there are certain people that are not comfortable imagining themselves ever being in that place and reject that idea.’

Fair enough, these things do happen, and this particular event actually did. Earlier in the interview, Zobel demonstrates his familiarity with Stanley Milgram’s conformity experiments which illustrate that it is indeed horrific the things humans will do if an authority figure tells them to. But when viewing a film, obviously people are going to get angry and mistrustful if their engagement with the story isn’t sufficient enough for them to suffer the same lack of moral judgement as the characters on screen do.

It would be an incredible feat to pull this off – the best bet might have been to attempt to fool the audience into believing that the caller was a real policeman, which would necessitate less of a giveaway title than Compliance and more secrecy in the media. But here’s the real problem – the media can’t describe the film in any other way than revealing the caller to be a prankster because the film is made in such a way that its only focus, only point of interest is how people respond to a fake authority figure. Like I said, it feels too much like an educational film and while watching it, I constantly pictured the director nodding sagely mouthing the words “it can happen”. OK Craig Zobel, yes it can, but while you treat your characters like dummies whose only purpose is to illustrate a textbook case, the message isn’t really hitting home.

This leads neatly to the second big problem of the film: with the characters, especially Becky, often looking and behaving robotically, it invites accusations of exploitation. Because we aren’t invested in the verisimilitude of events (even if we do accept that they really happened), as the film progresses and the central actress loses more and more clothes, there rises a creeping suspicion that the film is starting to play to the male gaze. Zobel doesn’t help himself by moving the camera behind a storage cabinet while Becky removes particular items of clothing. Rather than protecting the actress’ modesty with an artsy tracking shot, this moment comes across more as a tease. The ‘you can see this, but you can’t see that’ attitude is a big moment of discomfort. If the film was serious about depicting a real event/tackling a serious issue, surely the way to confront something is to represent it clinically, entirely. The way the director handled this moment reeked of exploitation.

If you’re going to make an exploitation film, fine; it isn’t a crime, there are some sleazy merits to doing so. If you’re going to make a serious issue docudrama, then do that instead. I’m sure there are some rare genius instances where the two can be combined but in this case, they most definitely shouldn’t be.

To pay Zobel his due, his writing, especially for ‘Officer Daniels’ (Pat Healy), does at times display a good understanding of the psychology behind coercion and conformity. I believe he has a thorough apprehension of the subject and even good intentions. The trouble is, he is much too impressed with the knowledge on a theoretical level and seems to delight in imparting the shocking news that human beings are far too enamoured with anybody who wears a uniform to think clearly. What he needed to do was force us to see it through good characterisation, without clouding the issue with suspicious exploitative moments.

Side Effects (2013)

All artists – directors especially – run the risk of becoming too precious with their output. Reticent to send out into the world something that doesn’t exactly embody their style/outlook or fully display their talents, they can find the gaps between pieces of work starting to increase. Years soon pass with no new releases. Eventually, if the one film every six (or more) years isn’t gold dust, it can just about finish a perfectionist off.

Steven Soderbergh, it seems, experiences no such creative block. Side Effects is his 5^th film in 2 years and it isn’t bad either. If nothing else, Soderbergh deserves credit for the solid consistency of his work and the drive and ambition with which he dives into each new project.

This said, there is often a feeling of slight disappointment upon leaving most of Soderbergh’s recent films. They seem to promise something special and original before settling into one of many well constructed but well-worn narrative paths about halfway through.

The Side Effects trailer invites one to expect a scathing attack on the pharmaceutical industry and a story that perhaps focuses on the negative consequences of prescribing brain chemistry-altering drugs to depressed individuals. The film does begin with this set up but somewhere along the way abandons any serious agenda in favour of the twists and turns of a traditional thriller. It gives the impression of being through composed from start to finish, with writer Scott Z. Burns unable to follow through on his original idea so juicing it up with one shocking revelation after another for his own amusement.

Acting is typically dependable from stars such as Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum. The screenplay is a little hammy and much of the dialogue doesn’t ring true but the cracks are capably papered over by the cast. Given what seems like the fewest lines and handed the arguably easy task of looking distraught for much of the film, Rooney Mara gives the most believable performance. She plays Emily, a woman prescribed ‘Ablixa’, a trial antidepressant with some undesirable side effects. As a tragedy unfolds, Emily’s doctor Jonathan (Jude Law) faces charges of negligence and the motives of everyone involved are gradually untangled (then re-tangled and finally re-untangled).

The thing that holds Side Effects together once its narrative begins to slip is Steven Soderbergh’s workmanship as a director and editor. The film is well put together by a man who knows how to tell a story. This makes it enjoyable long after you realise that the controversial issue-based drama you were sold isn’t quite what is being delivered to your eyes and ears.

Whatever genre it begins in, the film ends up as a sort of neo-noir with yellow (not black) washing out all else in the colour palette. I quite like this. Soderbergh did the same thing with Contagion, using some sort of filter throughout the film to jaundice almost every shot. It makes the film look ill and is very effective although not necessarily appealing to the eye. Its phlegmy aesthetic is just one of I’m sure many little tricks the director uses to give the film its shape and consistency.

Side Effects may not be the film you were expecting to see, but it is a good watch. Although the themes it touches upon may provoke an afternoon on Wikipedia, the film itself doesn’t clarify or engage in such debates as “how to treat depression” or “who benefits from prescribing certain medications – the patient or the pharmaceuticals?” It simply exploits this subject matter to fuel a thriller – albeit an enjoyable one.

Robot & Frank (2013)

It’s rare that a film looks into ‘the near future’ and doesn’t see digital chaos, silicon tragedy and human slaves being electronically whipped by their robot overlords. Robot & Frank bypasses the technophobia of such films to present a far more recognisable version of our probable old age.

On the surface, Robot & Frank comes across as a gentle comedy about an elderly ex-jewel thief who is addled with a robot helper when his children stop visiting.

But it is neither as anodyne as this sounds nor as cynical as the sentimental tosh often lacquered with the ‘feel-good’ tag. It is gentle but unfolds with a real melancholy as the dementia of Frank (Frank Langella) is woven delicately with the perfection and pitfalls of computer memory.

Although initially rejecting the robot (I love that he never gives it a name), Frank eventually recognises its potential for assisting him in one last dip into his old criminal ways. The robot is the perfect friend for Frank, offering complete servility and confidentiality. Programmed to help Frank stay healthy, the robot also gives Frank the opportunity to fulfil his need to rebel – ironically, the more Frank disobeys its agenda, the more his youthful spark returns.

The best thing about the film is its portrait of Frank. The robot may be Frank’s reliable rock but as it consistently reminds him, it doesn’t really exist as a tangible personality. The truth is, its main function is to allow Frank to become reacquainted with himself. Through his interaction with an infallible computer memory, Frank begins to recall long forgotten slivers of his life story – bittersweet both for him and us.

The film is a thoughtful meditation on ageing and delicately raises questions about the perceived burden of the aged, the failing human memory’s capacity for improvement and what benefits might be lost to both parties if the young abandon the old.

Stoker (2013)

So generally infantile are trailers in their desperate splurge of what distributors feel are the best moments of a film and so rife are they with conspicuous plot spoilers that I’m sold to any film that uses its minute-long advertising spot to give nothing away about what it might be about, what happens in it or even what genre it might be conveniently placed into.

See I hate trailers. I never post them. But this one is perfect.

Having watched Stoker, I remain somewhat unable to pigeonhole it. Psychological thriller? Dramatic horror? However best to comfortably describe it, the film holds up as one of the most affecting I’ve seen for many months.

Mia Waikowska plays India, an introverted teenager on the cusp of adulthood whose father has recently died in a car crash. Acutely aware of everything her 5 senses deliver and inherently suspicious of everybody around her, India lives with her troubled mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) in their isolated family home. When India’s estranged Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) introduces himself, she finds herself repelled and captivated in equal measure by her new relation as he aids her transition into adulthood.

Stoker is beautifully made, with a directorial touch as delicate as the central character’s super-tuned senses. The care taken in framing each subject is absolutely sublime and the pinpoint symbolism (keys, shoes, locked drawers, trees) is better than Hitchcockian.

Sound design is also very careful and close. Slow egg cracking, squeaking wine glasses and the amalgamation of a digging-spade with heavily played piano keys are about as good as it gets for a micro-sound junkie.

The trio of actors at the heart of the drama play their dysfunctional family with minimal… minimal drama actually, which really suits the piece because under each ice-cold exterior, you can see everyone is boiling. Uncle Charlie has a simmering malevolence, Evelyn is bubbling with grief and jealousy and India is brewing the potential of adulthood, never betraying quite in which direction she is blossoming until the final act.

I suppose you always realise a good film by how necessary everything you see and hear is to the effect it produces. Mysterious gestures, fastidiously-designed montages and complicated sound processes can all seem very gimmicky when used as a smokescreen to deceive audiences by glossing over a film’s shortcomings. But in a film such as this, where every carefully realised element is integral to its nature, the effect is simply stunning.

Maybe I’ve just had too many underwhelming experiences in the cinema of late but when a film completely traverses the alienation of a huge silver screen, beguiles you into its odd little world and then horrifies your sensibilities to the point where it still cloys at your mind 10 days after seeing it – well, that’s something to celebrate.