Review: 'Stanford Prison Experiment' is an uncomfortable film - and that's good
Posted Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 2:29 PM Central
Last updated Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 2:34 PM Central
by John Couture
As someone who holds a degree in psychology, there are fewer psychology experiments as famous as The Stanford Prison Experiment. There's a reason that it's taught in every Introduction to Psychology class across the country.
In fact, the experiment is so memorable that I would wager that it, along with the Milgram experiment, would be on a shortlist of experiments that non-majors would be able to recall from memory. So, it's fitting that the experiment has been turned into a major motion picture.
The film debuted at Sundance earlier this year and won two awards, including Best Screenplay. The buzz on it coming out of Sundance was pretty good, so it's surprising that it earned less than a million dollars at the box office. Sometimes the best films aren't necessarily the most lucrative ones.
As someone who spent so much time studying psychology and this experiment, in particular, I was looking forward to this film. When the opportunity came up to review it, I couldn't respond affirmatively fast enough.
The interesting thing about The Stanford Prison Experiment is that it is probably best known for its failures than for anything the original experiment was able to conclusively discern. The experiment is an excellent case study not only in behavior but also of ethics and methodology. You can see why this experiment is such an important touchstone for the study of psychology.
And whether it's Abu Ghraib or some other abuse of prisoner story dominating news headlines, it's an experiment that continues to resonate and hold significance to this day. So, the film would have to be exceptional for it to do justice to the original experiment.
Thankfully for the film, it is.
First and foremost, the casting had to be spot on to be able to capture the specific environment that led to such a disastrous conclusion. Naturally, I'm a huge fan of Red State, so knowing that Michael Angarano and Nick Braun would be taking on roles as prison guards, I was happy.
In particular, Michael Angarano as "John Wayne" was completely believable as an abusive prison guard and from what I recall about the experiment, he was very much in line with what Dave Eshelman was trying to do. On the flip side, Ezra Miller was spot on as prisoner 8612, who loses his mind to the point where he was finally released from the study early.
What's equally compelling is that the entire cast is littered with upcoming actors on the cusp of becoming household names (if they aren't already). Actors such as Thomas Mann, Tye Sheridan, Moises Arias and Johnny Simmons bring so much weight to their roles that you actually believe that you are watching the original experiment's tapes and not a recreation.
If there's one thing that I was hoping to see more of in the film, it's the interaction behind the scenes between Billy Crudup's Dr. Philip Zimbardo and Olivia Thirlby's Christina Maslach. I've always been a fan of both Crudup and Thirlby and since the two real-life characters eventually ended up married, I'm sure there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than what ended up in the film, especially considering that Maslach is widely credited with being the voice of reason that led to the early termination of the experiment.
Overall, the film makes the viewer incredibly uncomfortable when watching it and that's a good thing. Ultimately the legacy of The Stanford Prison Experiment is more about the ethical implications of the experiment itself, so if the film is able to capture that and make the viewer feel for the young kids in the experiment then it has done its job.
It's a job that The Stanford Prison Experiment has done spectacularly and it is worthy of the accolades that it has received. The Stanford Prison Experiment is now available on DVD and if you enjoy a tight psychological thriller, then you should definitely seek it out.