Deep Fried Molestation: Beth Hated Compliance

Compliance is about a nineteen-year-old fast food worker who is sexually abused under her manager's supervision because a guy who calls the restaraunt gets his kicks by pretending to be a police officer and urging the manager and other employees to perform a body-cavity-search-and-then-some on said fast-food worker. It is based on a true story.

You will not like Compliance at all. That is the kindest thing I can say about it.

The good news about Compliance is that it isn’t exploitative. It doesn’t enjoy or expect you to get any pleasure at all out of the sustained sexual humiliation of its starlet Dreama Walker, a grueling ordeal which takes up the majority of the film’s running time. The bad news about Compliance, then, is twofold: first, it is about the sustained sexual humiliation of Dreama Walker, and second, it is not a movie you will get any pleasure out of. In other words, this isn’t exactly a film you recommend to friends and loved ones..

That’s not to say that I would never recommend difficult movies to friends and families. I can think of dozens of once-is-enough movies I’ve passed on to others over the years, and the plain truth is that Compliance just isn’t one of those movies. Alongside the squirm-inducing imagery of Walker’s torment, this movie also features fatally inept plotting, character motivations that strain credulity, and general left-footedness in scripting and staging the events. It's impossible to make the arch of this story suspenseful or interesting. As soon as the mysterious voice on the phone starts suggesting that the manager (Ann Dowd) personally strip search her own employee instead of taking the girl to a police station, we know that this man is not a police officer. The only question that remains is 1) how long is it going to take this manager to realize that this man is not a police officer and 2) how ugly will this ordeal  will get in the meantime.

Compliance, then, is an hour and a half of watching abuse get worse and worse at the hands of increasingly gullible people. After the ruse is up, there is no more plot left to prop the story up. Everyone stands around looking shocked, there are rumors of a lawsuit, and the movie ends.

Interspersed with awful scenes of the girl's humiliations are mournful long shots of boiling deep-fat fryers and greasy sinks, as though we're supposed to be disgusted not only by sexual assault but also by the concept of fast food in general. It seems like a case of misplaced priorities, but then again, maybe I like Chick-Fil-A too much.

This movie was heartily acclaimed when it played at Sundance and I can't imagine why. Possibly because it's based on a true story and because it's a finger-wagging warning about listening to authority. I don't know. I'm gonna go get some Chick-Fil-A.

That'll make it better.

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