Experimenter

“A darker comedy, indeed one that Kubrick might have envied.”—Film Comment

The prolific Michael Almereyda has produced a body of work as diverse and uncompromising as any filmmaker working today. His latest, Experimenter, is a formally daring biopic of Yale professor Stanley Milgram (played by Peter Sarsgaard), known for his controversial 1961 experiments that tested the limits of obedience and empathy by instructing fellow subjects to electrically shock each other (and at purportedly dangerous levels) if they answered a series of questions incorrectly. Almereyda constructs a compelling portrait of a man dedicated to understanding human behavior whose work, especially related to blind obedience, still resonates today. With Winona Ryder, John Leguizamo, and Taryn Manning. (90 mins., DCP)