Throw out all expectations when you head into Kyle Mangione-Smith’s Compliance. It’s so intense and chaotic, it makes the 2012 film of the same name look like child’s play. It’s eerie that the screenlife film hit Fantaspoa at this moment in time, so soon after the Epstein Files and Luigi Mangione’s shooting of a healthcare exec. Perhaps, it’s a bit of prescience on Mangione-Smith’s part—or he’s simply capturing the swelling fury we have over politicians and their complicity in sex crimes. He breaks the floodgates wide open with a story that’s uncomfortable, bold, and provokes one very important idea: we should just burn this country down and start over.
Former therapist Sam (Megan Wilcox) now works for UVisit, a website for booking cottages, beach houses, and other rental properties, while on vacation. She drives a Tesla, which already calls into question her moral judgments, and appears to be doing quite well with the company. She’s certainly not looking to rock the boat anytime soon and jeopardize everything she’s worked so hard for. But when a young woman named Sarah (Lindsey Normington) is viciously raped in her home, the brutal, violent assault throws everything into question. It becomes not just about Sam’s role in a much grander scheme, but it also spurs a strong emotional response from the audience and forces them (or us, rather) to confront their (our) own biases and ethical stances.
Sam’s boss, Harry (Charlie Wood), is far less concerned about Sarah’s well-being than he is about keeping it all under wraps. He’s days away from closing a lucrative deal. He can’t fuck this up. Sam, however, gets pulled into a dark and disturbing plot that might be the undoing of them all. A group of alt-right conspiracy nuts pickets outside UVisit’s high-rise offices, implying that an even greater evil lurks behind closed doors than anyone realizes.
Kyle Mangione-Smith addresses the known pedophile ring plaguing Hollywood, the twisted dalliance between corporations and politicians, and how far the complicit are willing to cover it all up. Compliance is not for the faint of heart. It features graphic auditory and visual depictions of rape and should be watched with extreme caution. When you peel back these layers, you get to the heart of the state of the U.S., particularly when it comes to presidential campaign donations, who is actually calling all the shots, and how no one in a position of power is doing a goddamn thing to stop any of it.
When you cut right down to it, Compliance mirrors society in such a jarringly raw way that it’s as though you’re watching the news. It’s a social feed consumed by depraved revelation after another. It seems like it’ll never end. And it’s all been normalized—but if you’re awake enough and not driven to numbness, you should be shaking with anger and ready to torch the suckers.
For the record: Luigi Mangione was right.
sink. your. teeth.
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