No film stirred up controversy and got the critics raving at this year’s Sundance Film Festival quite like Craig Zobel’s shocking thriller “Compliance.”
His sophomore feature (following “Great World of Sound”) follows the sensationalistic story of a fast-food restaurant manager who receives a call from a man claiming to be a police officer. Through a strange process of manipulation, the caller convinces staffers to place a co-worker accused of theft in quarantine, strip-search her and commit other invasive procedures that culminate with sexual assault. Zobel based the film on a real-life incident, but that didn’t seem to quell the audience at its premiere in Park City, where several people accused Zobel of misogyny during the Q&A while others spoke out in his defense. It currently holds a B+ average among critics listed in our Criticwire Network.
Get a sense of what got people so riled up by watching the just-released trailer for the Magnolia release, which opens August 17.
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