Compliance
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: August 17, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
2
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeAug 17, 2012
The actors in Compliance perform with thorough and chilling sincerity. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumAug 8, 2012
With a slow, relentless buildup focused on sexual humiliation, Compliance intensifies the "requests" put on Sandra, and eventually other employees, to behave immorally in the name of cooperation. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 6, 2012
It makes you think. And that's invaluable. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenAug 23, 2012
With its harrowing restraint, Compliance is potent filmmaking that's not easily forgotten. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid DenbyAug 20, 2012
Compliance is a small movie, but it provides insight into large and frightening events, like the voluntary participation of civilians in the terrible crimes of the last century. Read full review
90
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 16, 2012
A slow-motion punch to the groin. As such, it's fitting that one of our first sights is a large "NO" stenciled in the parking lot of a fast-food joint in suburban Ohio: as the film progresses, the word becomes a silent mantra for viewers who can't quite believe what they're seeing. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 30, 2012
Zobel's unsparing approach is justified. This film should be hard to watch - and it is. But it's also hard to forget. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniAug 23, 2012
A taut, understated minimalist masterwork. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 16, 2012
The truth can indeed be stranger than fiction and, in this case, were the story to have originated in the imagination of the screenwriter, it could rightfully be criticized as artificial and contrived. But, disturbing and unlikely as it may be, this stuff actually happened, and pretty much as Craig Zobel relates it. Read full review
83
The PlaylistTodd GilchristJul 28, 2012
Compliance is as much a meta-textual gauntlet as it is a movie; its subject matter not only deserves, but demands to be discussed and argued about, rather than being simply accepted at face value. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinJul 28, 2012
The subject matter is unrelentingly sordid yet the storytelling is so deadpan and understated that it's difficult, if not impossible, to dismiss it as exploitation or sexist provocation. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissAug 20, 2012
If this riveting, repelling film is to be seen, it must be not at home but in a theater, where you are confined in a room, like Sandra and Becky, deciding whether to watch, and how you would react. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensAug 18, 2012
Compliance examines, among other things, how misplaced faith in authority can lead to abuse on a systemic scale. It's a deeply moral movie about the failure of morality, as grueling to watch as it is necessary. Read full review
80
Village VoiceSteve EricksonAug 14, 2012
Compliance lets neither men nor women off the hook. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 14, 2012
You can't believe what you're watching: Compliance, true to its title, digs into the rarely explored subject of psychological acquiescence (behavioral scientist Stanley Milgram should get a cowriting credit), with common-sense dignity being the first casualty. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweJul 13, 2012
Likely to spur discussions about workplace safety, employee rights and broader awareness of sexual predation, Compliance is also a suspenseful psychological drama for viewers prepared to tolerate its extremes. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangJul 13, 2012
In taut, gripping and deeply disturbing fashion, writer-director Craig Zobel measures the depths to which rational individuals will sink to obey a self-anointed authority figure in Compliance. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 6, 2012
It's a small gem of a movie, disturbingly realistic and profoundly terrifying on a near-primal level. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn LevySep 20, 2012
Zobel isn't a sadist about all of this as, say, Roman Polanski or David Lynch or Todd Solondz might have been. There's a humanity here, even for the restaurant manager. But that still doesn't make Compliance easy to ingest. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 30, 2012
The very antonym of "fun," writer-director Craig Zobel's new film Compliance is one of the toughest sits of the movie year 2012. But it's an uncompromising and, in its way, honorable drama built upon a prank call that goes on and on. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAug 29, 2012
This is a well-made film, with plausible performances by all the leads, especially Ann Dowd. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliAug 23, 2012
Some films are harder to watch than others - not because they're bad, which makes for a different sort of painful viewing, but because they touch on areas of such profound moral discomfort that the mere act of watching makes us feel complicit. We feel like gutless witnesses to a crime. And that's what makes Compliance such a hard thing to stomach. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 16, 2012
Craig Zobel's potent and provocative Compliance is torture to sit through. It's also indispensable filmmaking. How is that possible? Check it out. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnAug 16, 2012
It's a movie that must be seen, processed and discussed, perhaps the first of its kind to transform the audience into a focus group. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam LitovitzAug 2, 2012
Compliance develops an intriguing premise intelligently, inquisitively and uncomfortably. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineRay GreeneJul 13, 2012
The audience for this movie will have to be an adventurous one, and even then a substantial portion will be outraged by what they see. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 16, 2012
Director Craig Zobel's indie, based on real cases, has a sharp psychological point and a can't-look-away quality even as it turns horrifically dark. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 30, 2012
Compliance is an extraordinarily assured, well-made drama, signaling a promising career for Zobel, an adroit filmmaker with a talent for taut pacing and staging. But it also fails its first test, which is that the audience believe every word of it. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezSep 21, 2012
The movie even fails on a psychological level, never illustrating how, in a pressure-cooker environment and swept up by mob-think mentality, we are capable of committing acts that innately repel us. Read full review
12
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 23, 2012
People do stupid things all the time. My friend and I sat through Compliance, didn't we? But there is a level of stupidity displayed by the people in this movie that beggars belief. Their behavior is to stupidity as the Death Star is to a doughnut. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerAug 12, 2012
It seems as if Craig Zobel wants to implicate the audience in these proceedings, but he doesn't have a very clear idea how to go about it. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 23, 2012
This nasty little bottom-feeder of a film is too condescending to be trusted, too manipulative to be believed, too turgid to be enjoyed, too shameless to be endured and, before and after everything else, too inept to make its misanthropic case. Read full review
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