Experimenter | Salt Lake City Weekly
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Experimenter

Rated PG-13 97 minutes 2015

★★★★★ ★★★★★
Social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s infamous 1961 experiment measured people’s willingness to inflict pain on strangers—and writer/director Michael Almereyda’s turns it into a playful, self-aware movie with an eccentric personality. Milgram (a twinkly-eyed Peter Sarsgaard) breaks the fourth wall to narrate the story, and Almereyda uses things like visual metaphors (an elephant in the room) and deliberately fake backdrops to remind us of the movie’s inherent artificiality. The film takes us through the whirlwind of notoriety that followed Milgram’s controversial work, including an amusing visit to the set of a TV movie based on the experiment, starring Ossie Davis (Dennis Haysbert) and William Shatner (Kellan Lutz); Winona Ryder adds warmth as Milgram’s supportive wife. Almereyda shrewdly avoids telling Milgram’s entire biography, focusing instead on the more easily managed story of this experiment and its after-effects. As Milgram, Sarsgaard is resourceful and optimistic, a trustworthy pal who’s eager to let us in on his secrets. Despite the alarming questions the study raised about human nature, the film is enjoyably relaxed, a humorous and upbeat account of a fascinating phenomenon. All social science should be this entertaining.

Film Credits

Official Site: experimentermovie.com

Director: Michael Almereyda

Producer: Michael Almereyda, Fabio Golombek, Aimee Schoof, Isen Robbins, Danny Abeckaser, Per Melita, Jeff Rice, Cláudio Szajman, Rogerio Ferezini, Christa Campbell, Lati Grobman, Trevor Crafts, Lee Broda and Mark Myers

Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Dennis Haysbert, Jim Gaffigan, Taryn Manning, Kellan Lutz, John Leguizamo, Anton Yelchin, Anthony Edwards, Lori Singer, Edoardo Ballerini, Josh Hamilton and Vondie Hall

Show Times

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