COMPLIANCE

An hour later the phone rings and on the other line is Police Officer Daniels who is following through a complaint about a theft from a customer’s purse by Becky one of the young counter assistants. The Officer explains that as this is part of a larger  investigation into the young girl and her boyfriend, he is still at Becky’s house and so will need Sandra’s help until he can get there himself. She agrees and totally goes along with the Officer’s instructions, which starts off innocuously searching Becky and her possessions.  When this fails to uncover the missing cash, the Officer steps up his demands and insists that Becky is now strip-searched.

Although somewhat reluctant to go this far, Daniels uses both intimidation and flattery to keep Sandra co-operating especially as he has now convinced her that Becky is guilty as charged.  All logic has flown out of the window.

Whilst this is all going down, the restaurant is slammed and not coping well with the absence of the two women from the counter. So Sandra is continually distracted by the demands of her staff which leads her to follow the Officer’s increasingly obnoxious orders without questioning them fully. Even though they serve in humiliating a now naked Becky who is left cowering in front of one of her male colleagues with just a apron to cover some of her dignity.

When Sandra’s fiance Van turns up at the Restaurant he is persuaded to play the role of ‘warder’ so the others can now go back to deal with rush in the restaurant.   Daniels soon manipulates this easy-going construction worker into interacting with this naked young girl which turns this creepy experience into one of horrifying sexual terror.  Van flees the scene in disgust, and it is only when Sandra persuades her Yardman to take over watching Becky  does someone really start to question Daniel’s authenticity.

This nightmarish scenario is evidently based on a real incident that happened in a Kentucky McDonald’s in 2004 (and about another 70 similar hoax calls nationwide were reported).  Its uncomfortably voyeuristic (even with the discreet camera angles we still know full well the grubby detail of what is happening) and is best described as downright creepy.   The fact that Sandra a seemingly decent woman of average intelligence should completely respect an (alleged) person of authority as society expects us to do is totally understandable, but the fact that she never questioned him at all when the instructions went way beyond any boundaries of decency still doesn’t sit right.   Is ‘obeying orders’ ever an acceptable and moral defense?

It’s the 2nd narrative from filmmaker Craig Zobel and he does exact some rather wonderful performances from his lead actors, in particular Ann Dowd who is quite marvellous as Sandra.

This reminds me of ‘The Impostor.’ another new movie about an incredible and real hoax, which after viewing I totally believed that such a ridiculously bizarre scenario could actually happen. But be warned, this story is less ‘entertaining’ and is extremely disturbing and unsettling as it makes one feel uncomfortable complicit just by simply watching it.

★★★★★★★★