Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram (Peter
Sarsgaard) designs a psychology experiment, in which people think
they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger (Jim
Gaffigan) strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for
mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering
what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve
been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living
rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the
scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to
comply with authority.
Celebrated in some circles, he is also
accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha
(Winona Ryder) stands by him through it all. EXPERIMENTER invites us
inside Milgram’s whirring mind in this bracing portrait of a brilliant
man whose conscience and creative spirit continues to be resonant,
poignant, and inspirational.