16 Oct Experimenter Review

Obedience to Authority 

If you’re familiar with the social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, you will definitely want to see this week’s FridayFlix pick, Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder! Experimenter follows the true story of Milgram’s controversial studies of authority, conformity, obedience, and consciousness. Milgram, played by peter Sarsgaard, created a controversial parallel between his experiments and the Holocaust.  His experiments observed how the average person would react to being asked to send harmful electrical shocks to a stranger. Although the person sending the shocks often felt that what they were doing was wrong, they continued obey the authoritative figure that was sending these commands. While many people believed that they would reject causing harm to someone, the outcome was shockingly different.

Innovative director Michael Almereyda takes an interesting approach in Experimenter as Peter Sarsgaard speaks subtly and directly to the camera. He brings forth this audience interaction to create a more personal experience for the viewer and to understand the meaning of these experiments.  Instead of simply creating a historical overview of the Stanley Milgram story, Almereyda puts a new spin on this familiar story.  Viewers may ask themselves by the end: “What can Milgram take away from these experiments?” as well as, “How does this offer us a better understanding of historical events?” You may notice that while these experiments help us answer these particular questions, Milgram could coincidentally be considered an accomplice of his own test.

Watch Experimenter on FlixFling.

This guest blog was written by Breelyn Starrett.