Craig Zobel’s Compliance was possibly the most controversial film to emerge from this year’s Sundance film festival, a film based on a real-life crime that had strange, and increasingly dark, implications for those caught up in a prankster’s web. The trailer has now arrived over at Apple.
The setting is a small, backwater burger bar in the States where usually the biggest concern is having enough meat patties to supply customers’ needs on busy nights. But then the manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd), a middle-aged woman trying to keep things moving smoothly, gets a call from the police accusing one of her counter girls, Becky (Dreama Walker) of stealing from a customer. Claiming that they’re too busy to jail her themselves, Sandra complies with the caller’s request to detain, and, later, search her. Things turn even darker after that, especially when the truth of the call is revealed.
The real-world links of the movie give it the edge over something based purely on fiction, but this is not your usual popcorn thriller. Compliance is out in the US on August 17, but there’s no set UK date yet.