The Stanford Prison Experiment

How would you act if somebody handed you a uniform, a nightstick, and full reign over a group of prisoners? Until a person is in that situation, he never really knows to what depth he might abuse power. That’s one conclusion from The Stanford Prison Experiment (rated R for bad language, abusive behavior, and some sexual references), which dramatizes a real-life prison simulation in 1971 that gained notoriety for going a little too well.

At first, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) worried nobody would take his experiment seriously. After all, his makeshift “prison” is a sterile hallway at a campus building, with emptied offices for “cells” and a broom closet for “solitary confinement.” The 18 subjects—privileged college boys blowing cigarette smoke through underachieving mustaches—are assigned as prisoners or guards based on coin flips. What happens next is intensely unsettling to watch, especially considering that much of the script is based on recordings of the actual experiment.

Day one of the experiment begins with awkward, scripted orders from self-conscious guards and smirks from disrespectful prisoners. They look like boys playing “cops and robbers,” and one feisty prisoner (Ezra Miller) even snorts, “You’re kidding, right?” as the guards pull a stocking over his head.

But by the end of the day, nobody’s snickering. One short student in particular (Michael Angarano) eases into his role as brutal guard the moment he slides on a visor: He affects a man-swagger Southern drawl, swings his nightstick menacingly, and invents increasingly sadistic games to humiliate and crush the prisoners under his newfound, unchecked authority—and the other guards gleefully follow suit. Within the first few hours, minds and identities crack.

Like the 1971 experiment, the film has its flaws: Two hours is way too long to spend on scene after scene of boys brutalizing boys with little depth or analysis. But The Stanford Prison Experiment is an effective reminder of the fragility of our human mind, the bestial capabilities of our nature, our unstable grasp on reality, and why we need a Savior.