MPR News Arts Reporter and Cube Critic Euan Kerr stops by The Current's Morning Show to talk about a film that looks at the true story behind a now-famous (or perhaps infamous) 1961 study at Yale University. Written and directed by Michael Almereyda, Experimenter stars Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder and Jim Gaffigan.

"This is about the infamous obedience experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram," Euan says, describing the experiments done in the early 1960s by Milgram, a Yale psychologist, in which people think they're delivering painful electric shocks to an person strapped to a chair in another room. Despite pleas for mercy, the majority of subjects didn't not stop the experiment, administering what they think are near-fatal electric shocks, simply because they've been told to do so.

"Weirdly enough, 85 percent of the people would keep going all the way to the end, even after the guy had gone silent," Euan says. "The results are horrifying because they basically show humans will do terrible things if they can claim someone else is wanting them to do it."

Euan says the film looks at the larger context in which the experiment takes place; particularly, not long after the horrors of World War II. "Peter Sarsgaard plays Stanley Milgram, the experimenter, who frankly was a slightly weird kind of guy, but he was really interested in what drives human nature. So he did this experiment and he came out with what he thought was really clear evidence about the true nature of human behavior and found himself getting pilloried."

The film also blurs the boundaries between what appears real and what is not. Click the audio player above to hear the complete review and discussion.

Experimenter is rated PG-13 and is showing at the Landmark Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis.

MPR's Cube Critics, Stephanie Curtis and Euan Kerr, join The Current's Morning Show to talk about films every Friday at 8:30 a.m.

Related

• Experimenter - official site