Character Relationship Map: Experimenter

Characters

• Stanley Milgram (played by Peter Sarsgaard) — protagonist

  A famed social psychologist who conducts obedience experiments at Yale, faces public criticism over their ethics, advances his academic career in New York City, studies social interactions and pressur...

• Alexandra "Sasha" Milgram (played by Winona Ryder) — protagonist

  Stanley Milgram's wife and the mother of his two children. She meets Milgram during the period depicted between his experiments and appears in the final present-day repetition of the street-corner exp...

• Paul Hollander (played by Edoardo Ballerini) — supporting
• William Shatner (played by Kellan Lutz) — supporting
• Ossie Davis (played by Dennis Haysbert) — supporting

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Stanley Milgram → Alexandra "Sasha" Milgram (Romantic Husband And Wife) — Their marriage is the film's central personal relationship alongside Stanley's professional work.

  The plot states that Stanley meets Alexandra, also called Sasha, and that she becomes his wife.

Story Dynamics

Alliances, conflicts, and narrative interactions that evolve throughout the story.

• Ossie Davis → Paul Hollander (related)
• William Shatner → Paul Hollander (related)
• William Shatner → Ossie Davis (related)

Story Analysis

Stanley Milgram's career examines obedience, social pressure, ethical controversy, and the persistence of research after his death.

Plot Progression

1. Obedience Under Pressure — Stanley Milgram conducts radical obedience experiments at Yale University. Test subjects repeatedly administer shocks to a stranger despite pleas to stop.
2. Love Between Experiments — Between the experiments, Stanley meets Alexandra, known as Sasha. Their relationship develops into marriage and family life.
3. The Ethics Debate — Public outcry challenges the ethics of Milgram's experiments. He advances professionally and becomes a professor in New York City.
4. Social Life In The City — Milgram studies social interaction through small-world, lost-letter, street-corner, and familiar-stranger experiments. He also has students conduct research.
5. The Experiment Endures — Milgram's work continues until his death from a heart attack at age 51. A present-day street-corner repetition and archival footage extend his legacy beyond the narrative.