More than once in Michael Almereyda's playfully imaginative telling of the famous Stanley Milgram experiment, the film's subject walks through the corridors of Yale University musing direct to camera as an elephant lumbers by in the background.
As sly directorial winks go, it's may seem too showy and knowing but it effectively underlines the research's key message: that deception is often sustained by the tacit agreement of deceiver and deceived..
The 1961 experiment, one of psychology's most famous, assigned two randomly selected test subjects the roles of Teacher and Learner. Teacher would ask Learner (who sat, heard but unseen, in the next room) a series of multiple-choice questions.
For each incorrect answer, Teacher was instructed to administer a remote-controlled electric shock to Learner. Each shock was stronger than the last.
The trick (and the experiment's point) is that Learner is a member of Milgram's team. His escalating cries of pain are feigned and no real shock is being administered. Yet almost two-thirds of Teachers administered "shocks" they knew to be fatal.
