The name Stanley Milgram might not ring a bell for a lot of people, but his work as a social psychologist might. Milgram had a hand in creating some of the most fascinating social experiments in the 20th century (one of his experiments helped introduce the concept of “six degrees of separation), with his most famous study being the obedience experiments he conducted at Yale in the 1960s. His obedience experiments revealed a disturbing truth about society and people’s willingness to obey authority figures even if they don’t want to. Milgram helped expose a fundamental flaw in humanity’s own construction of itself, and even today some people turn a blind eye towards Milgram’s findings. Taking a cue from Milgram’s work, writer/director Michael Almereyda has crafted a brilliant biopic of Milgram with Experimenter, one that’s playful, enlightening and subversive from beginning to end.

Taking advantage of the fact that his subject spent a living experimenting with confronting societal norms, Almereyda continually messes around with the norms and structures of biopics and filmmaking in general. Milgram narrates and addresses the camera directly, frequently breaking the fourth wall and discussing his life with an omniscient tone, while the film frequently embraces artifice in its form: rear projection, theatrical sets, blending in documentary footage, asides detailing other social experiments from Milgram’s colleagues, and at one point making the term “elephant in the room” more literal than metaphorical. Almereyda’s direction is nothing short of brilliant here in the way it channels the spirit of Milgram into its own conception.

Peter Sarsgaard plays Milgram, and even he seems aware that this is his best role in years, relishing in his character’s charm and playfulness. Winona Ryder also does a great job playing Milgram’s wife Sasha, turning what could have easily been a thankless role into one that carries the film’s emotional weight. Both actors are part of a strong, eclectic ensemble (including John Leguizamo, Jim Gaffigan, Taryn Manning and Anton Yelchin), but this is really Almereyda and Sarsgaard’s show. It will be hard to imagine any other biopic topping Experimenter this year.

Love & Mercy

Brian Wilson wrote some of the most beautifully complex pieces of music in history throughout his decades-long career with the Beach Boys and beyond. But as a person, he’s more beautifully complex than anything anyone could ever write. Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy explores Wilson’s psyche from two angles, focusing on the biggest artistic and personal turning points in his life. Paul Dano plays a Wilson as a young man in the Beach Boys’ heyday, in the midst of writing what would become one of the greatest albums of all time, Pet Sounds. Making up the other half of the movie is a more recent, frightening period in Wilson’s life (he’s played here by John Cusack), when he was under the (highly medicated) spell of unethical therapist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), his only protection from whom being his beach blonde soul mate, Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks).

Alternating between the two Brians is a welcome break from the typical biopic schematic. Dano’s resemblance is scary uncanny, and while Cusack’s isn’t so spot-on (I didn’t see it, to be honest), their commitment as actors is about level. Beach Boys fans will suffer uncontrollable geek-outs during the Pet Sounds studio session reenactments, but the real value of the film lies in the respectfully unkempt and fraught depiction of Wilson’s legacy as both a musician and a man.

Experimenter

Slipping between several planes of reality with the nimbleness of a jazz ensemble, Michael Almereyda‘s Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard as late social psychologist Stanley Milgram, is more of a delectable treat than the dark subject matter might lead you to believe. It centers on Milgram’s famed contributions to the world of social experimentation, most notably his controversial experiment on obedience conducted in the ’60s. We see the Holocaust-inspired experiment—involving test subjects led to believe they’re remotely causing harm to a man in an adjacent room (played by Jim Gaffigan)—reenacted by a litany of strong players, including Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Anthony Edwards, and others.

The film sees Sarsgaard’s Milgram periodically address us, the audience, in cleverly worded monologues that highlight the actor’s natural wit and intellect. It’s fun to see Sarsgaard given so much breathing room; he has a lot of fun with the role, and so we do as well. Almereyda lets loose too, with neat touches like utilizing rear-projection backdrops and employing a real-life elephant to stalk behind Sarsgaard down a hall as a fun metaphor. Winona Ryder stars as Milgram’s wife, Sasha, and gives the film an emotional oomph whose importance is clearest by film’s end.

7 Chinese Brothers

Jason Schwartzman is ridiculously funny in Bob Byington‘s 7 Chinese Brothers, a film created in the Wild West indie landscape that panders to no one (mainstream audiences will likely balk at the quaint, offbeat humor), but will please crackpot-comedy weirdos (like yours truly) to no end. Larry (Schwartzman) is a small-town schlub who drinks his way into and out of menial jobs he can’t stand. He’s got his romantically savvy friend, Major Norwood (TVOTR’s Tunde Adebimpe), his silvery grandmother (Olympia Dukakis), and his impossibly drowsy dog (Schwartzman’s real dog, Arrow) to keep him company most days. When he finds himself gravitated to his new boss, Lupe (Eleanore Pienta), he’s shocked to discover that, for once, he actually looks forward to going to work.

A lot of the funniest stuff in 7 Chinese Brothers involves Schwartzman almost having a contest with himself, trying to come up with the most bizarre behaviors he can think of and making them as out-there as possible. It’s the little, absurdist stuff that makes you laugh, like Schwartzman throwing garbage into a garbage can, and then throwing said garbage can into a dumpster. Byington’s written a great script, too, each line of dialogue going in a different direction than you expected. Keep this one in mind.

When A-listers assemble for a film that hardly seems viable on paper let alone delivering anything of worth on-screen, one has to wonder what the inside joke is. The paycheck couldn’t have been that enticing for an indie drama-comedy and with a first time director, Anna Mastro, and a cloying script adapted from a first-time short by Paul Shoulberg, there was certainly no real muscle enticing the likes of William H. Macy, Virginia Madsen, and sleeper-celebs Neve Campbell and Peter Facinelli. So while the actual logistics around a production of this sort elude me, the evidence of Walter’s thinly-lined plot, actively unfunny premise, and reaching sentimentality are abundant.

Walter is the tale of Walter (spoiler alert), an uptight young man (Andrew J. West) who lives an organized and calculated life as indicated by the three alarms he uses to wake up in the morning, his eyes popping open before they even begin to chime. His robot—I mean mother (Virginia Madsen)—leaves his freshly pressed shirt for him next to his door every morning and cooks him eggs for every meal, constantly bemoaning the dangers of starvation. As for his father, well, Walter is the son of God. Not THE son of God, that beardy one, just another son of God. And as such, Walter has been gifted with the ability to judge. (An ability I’d heretofore thought everyone possessed.) Walter’s judgements are simple: “heaven” or “hell.”

To supply him with a steady stream of people to judge, Walter works in the local multiplex tearing tickets. Joined by douche-bag Vince (Milo Ventimiglia), who pokes fun of Walter’s slightly Asperger-ish ways, and the beautiful—and clearly heaven-bound—Kendall (Leven Rambin) who works in concessions. Jim Gaffigan is sorely underutilized as their always-annoyed manager Corey. Not only does Walter busy himself tearing tickets and muttering eternal condemnation on his unsuspecting patrons, but he’s also the shy-movie-lover type, spending his breaks inside the theaters watching whatever is on. This particular trait leads to many a movie-reel style flashback wherein we learn Walter’s father (Peter Facinelli) died when he was young. A sad, broken, father-less introvert who lives a controlled life to the point of deciding the after-life fate of every stranger he sees sounds like the most open and close psych case out there.

And indeed, Walter does eventually find himself a therapist (William H. Macy) when his organized life is put into tail-spin by the appearance of someone new. Greg the Ghost (Justin Kirk). Not quite as friendly as Casper, but at least not decomposing, and stuck in a sort of limbo awaiting judgement for the past ten years. How he knows to track down Walter the Judger we don’t know, but Walter is none too pleased to be asked to pass judgement on someone already dead. Apparently his gift only works on the living. Greg won’t take no for an answer and as he drags Walter around showing him the life he left behind, strange connections to Walter’s own life start to become transparent.

From there the film quickly dissolves into a goopy mess, abandoning its comedic sensibilities altogether and attempting to insert heightened emotion with some long-winded dramatically-tense scenes between Walter and his mother, and Walter and his therapist. Unfortunately Walter is entirely too stiff to care much for by this point and his revelations align in cookie cutter patterns that are entirely too convenient. Everyone responds appropriately, right down to dream-girl-Kendall being open to all-new-Walter in that way that only scripted dream-girls can be.

Walter wishes it were quirky, a word I’ve come to despise and lesser indies seem to aspire to. But if “weird” is what Walter is going for, it doesn’t even reach that. Mostly it’s a strange concept, that actually falls into totally plausible categories and develops exactly the way you’d think. It’s unbalanced in its intent, failing to push hard enough with its comedy and pushing too hard with its drama. As a simple look into the world of a young man on the cusp—I’m not joking, they even use the same “Hero” song we’ve all grown to associate with Boyhood during one scene—it’s simply not moving, nor enlightening. If they’d thrown God into the mix, or even provided any sort of explanation for Walter’s gift and how it works, than the actual “weirdness” of the film might have been interesting, but alas these areas go entirely undeveloped.

Macy and Madsen are always on their game, but this game is about as fun to watch as solitaire. West (his most recent memorable role being leader of a cannibalistic tribe on The Walking Dead) is straight with his awkward and emotionally stunted character to the point of detachment, but I won’t place the blame entirely on his shoulders. It’s often the case when a short film is translated to feature-length that the filler ends up being more of what already existed, which only makes for too much of what was previously just enough. Walter is a stretched out short with some A-list talent but not enough sense to hold it afloat. Perhaps its time for indie comedies to stop aspiring to “quirky” and start aspiring to well-developed and less gimmicky.

Walter gets a limited theatrical release Friday, March 13.