Experimenter (2015)

Such a frustrating disappointment

People are voting emotionally.

hyped garbage

Great Film overall

First off, Dr. Milgram's work is a great subject for a film and left the door open for a million ways for this story to be told. The positive side: It's a well-cast rendition which covers the basic points in the man's life. For someone who has never read about his work, I think it's a great introduction. The performances are not bad, but I think as a result of a weak script, the action plays out in a very dry and unemotional way. Stylistic decisions (such as direct address of the audience by the title character in almost every scene) make it very hard to take this film seriously or to have any real response. Many moments in the film seem to be reenactments done as snippets of a bad documentary on Milgram, where others hit right on the dot.All in all they tried to cover too much material for one film and should have found something more specific to focus on. They style cinematography, direct address of camera, and moments of green-screened action on black and white backgrounds, make the film very hard to suspend disbelief. It was nice to see someone attempt a style outside the Hollywood formula, but sadly this one didn't choose the right methods of experimentation.

Michael Almereyda's Experimenter isn't what you would think it is. It is a documentary disguised as a movie that examines and experiments on the viewer through abstract story telling, bizarre imagery and personal quandaries. The film aims to tell us a very interesting story, but Experimenter always feels the need to remind us that we aren't as smart as the intellectuals showcased, making the audience feel considerably distanced. To start, the acting is pretty excellent overall. While I was never familiar with Stanley Milgram before, Peter Sarsgaard gave an incredibly intriguing performance as the sly social psychologist. He brought a surprising amount of depth to a character who would seemingly appear shallow. Winona Ryder also gave an excellent performance as Milgram's spouse. Her character serves as the audience's character as she is mostly unfamiliar with Milgram's work. She helps to reveal layers of humanity and emotion that we never expected from the icy and straight- faced Milgram. Even the sub-characters with minimal screen-time put in a great effort. Their small movements and facial expressions during the film's first experiment sequences are incredibly realistic and make these scenes totally engrossing.All the experiments shown and explained throughout the film are easily the film's best moments. These experiments and social predicaments are absolutely fascinating. They act as a vessel in which we can view raw human emotions and nature in unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations. Sadly, the film insists on making us feel like we are the ones being experimented on, which puts a considerable distance between the film and audience. Experimenter is a film about intellectuals and their need to put themselves above the public. The story shared with us is explained through abstract storytelling and some strange imagery, and many times throughout I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being pandered to. Experimenter becomes quite pretentious when it decides to abandon it's regular path of narrative and adopt a quirky and abstract style of storytelling. It isn't always like this though, but it does become quite obvious when the film thinks that it is so much smarter than it's audience. Experimenter manages to be entertaining most of the time, despite it's complicated and deep social psychology. But when Experimenter is bad, it's really bad. There are some stretches within the film that are completely dull and boring. These stretches are somewhat infrequent, but the entire film does take a hit when a narrative slump this massive shows up. Luckily, these parts aren't quite long enough to completely ruin the film, but they still are quite noticeable and unpleasant. The excellent acting and fascinating social experiments are more than enough to say that this film is enjoyable, but Experimenter doesn't bode too well when it so obviously sees the audience as below it.

This movie was a miserable attempt to create a movie that was based on a true story that occurred in 1961.Stanley Milgram's character was portrayed in a neutral manner that causes the audience to lose interest. In this movie we make an inference that Stanley's experiments are all conducted in a safe environment with the 1976 conduction agreement of fair testing. Michael Almereyda, writer and director of the most catastrophic movie in cinematic history,failed to create an enjoyable movie for the desired audience.This movie is not one for the kids failing to grab the attention of the Audience. I wholeheartedly believe that this incompetent movie is Great to your child to sleep,within the time you can blink your eyes your child will be fast asleep.In conclusion, I strongly believe that this movie should be exterminated from the face of the earth. If any assistance is required please call bobs bugs be gone.

In 1961, famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans willingness to obey authority.Although Almereyda was aware of Milgram's work, it wasn't until his girlfriend began taking a class on him that Almereyda became interested. Subsequently, the director found himself reading Milgram's "Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View". According to Almereyda once he started reading, he "instantly saw how filmable it was" becoming increasingly interested in making it into a film the more he went on.I am fairly knowledgeable on Milgram's work. Through both philosophy classes and psychology classes, I have read his book and watched the original film of the obedience experiment (which bears a great many similarities to the film here). I love how they went beyond that and explored his other experiments and what they saw about humanity. And I had no idea that Shatner had appeared in yet another film version (making this movie sort of meta in a way).