Experimenter

Stanley Milgram was a controversial social psychologist who was inspired by the events of WWII and the Holocaust to investigate obedience to authority in administering pain to others. The results of his research are depressing, to say the least. Michael Almereyda's film, which premiered at this year's Sundance, portrays Milgram as someone who falls between an enlightened researcher and a demiurge drunk on power. Milgram lasers in on his subjects and shares his own views with veiled concern. From time to time, he turns with a show-man's flash-in-the-eye directly to the audience to remind them of the contrived nature of what they're watching as if they too were experimental rats. The film is not just about experiments, it is an experiment itself: an extravagant biography, and mix of life, fantasy and science. Such old-school indie-art-movie quirks won't be to everyone's liking, but for those who imbibe, "Experimenter" offers a heady brew of theories about the essence of human nature, and a Peter Sarsgaard performance that catches Milgram in all his seductive, megalomaniacal brilliance," writes Scott Foundas in "Variety".