The movie ‘Com­pli­ance’ is dis­turb­ing on many dif­fer­ent levels, and left me with a feel­ing of extreme dis­com­fort, and even dis­or­i­ent­a­tion, long after the cred­its rolled, no less because it is based on true events, referred to by the Amer­ican media as the “strip search prank call scam’. As the story unfolds in the movie in the same sequence as it did in real­ity, Sandra, the man­ager of an Ohio “Chick­wich” fast-​food out­let, receives a call from a man falsely claim­ing to be a police detect­ive. Refer­ring to him­self as “Officer Daniels” or “Sir”, he accuses a young female cash­ier, Becky, of steal­ing money from a cus­tomer. He then enlists Sandra’s assist­ance in phys­ic­ally detain­ing Becky in the store room of the out­let and strip-​searching her. Sandra and two other employ­ees are caught up in events that become increas­ingly unset­tling, escal­ate through­out, and ulti­mately cul­min­ate in the degrad­ing sexual abuse and humi­li­ation of Becky by Sandra’s boy­friend, Van.

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