I want to like this movie so bad. I mean, the premise is fantastic, and I think it really nail on the satirical end for the allienation generated by a hip CEO, the need for "sharing" and "being social", the end of privacy and the use of personal/private data to benefit a company. They also set The Circle as this creepy company that swears it does it all to make the world a better place, but it's obviously shady and dangerous.
The problem is the way it's written. It's terrible. It feels so shallow, like it's a great story and we only get to see a portion of it. Emma Watson's acting was on point, but the character had her doing this crazy eyes. She goes from mildly concerned to lunatic about the company's visions in apparently no-time, like she was brainwashed or something, and then she becomes a robot. John Boyega's characted could have been soooo much more explored, as well as the tech, the implications of the tech, the world's views on The Circle's plans... It just has so many holes. We don't even get to see what Bailey and Stenton had on them, and what the company became. The end of this movie was one of the most unfulfilling I have ever seen. But then again, the idea is so good. Somebody redo this, please!
Emma Watson plays Mae, a twenty-something who lands her dream job at "The Circle," your not-so-subtle Apple/Google/Facebook knockoff with sinister ulterior motives. Something feels wrong about the corporate campus from the very moment she arrives, but that doesn't stop Mae from mindlessly embracing the new gig and, quickly, ascending to lofty status as a global mouthpiece for the CEO (Tom Hanks in a Steve Jobs Halloween costume) and his underhanded cronies' narrow agenda. As a protagonist, Mae is infuriatingly naive and compliant. She's the proverbial horse-led-to-water, shown the dark side of the company's aspirations and then, against all sense of reason, doubling down on her support for the new evil empire.
With a little nuance and a better understanding of metaphor, this could've served as a halfway decent Twilight Zone wannabe. Instead it's heavy-handed and preachy, forced and unfocused, with a blunt approach to morality that's more after-school special than Rod Sterling hypothetical. Flat, inept and simple-minded, it trips over its own feet in a feeble attempt to hit its misguided talking points. When it was all said and done, I felt like I'd been lectured by a loud, uninformed aunt on social media. I want to pat these filmmakers on the head and then back away.
there are things that I like about this movie and some that I somewhat don't understand.
I like the concept that it want to express : sure, technology everywhere and always can be useful in may ways, but we also need to keep our bundaries and not get overwhelmed by it. I love the general theme of everyone always being so exited about all the new stuff while the viewer clearly has a creepy feeling about it. there was this clear cut between me and the people in the movie, Everytime they were so happy about something I was thinking to myself "ok I can see why that would be good but it's too much".
I also really liked the protagonist, she seemed like a normal person that understands all the implications that these things have (like us) but instead she gets dragged deeper and deeper into the complete tech-absorption. I was 100% sure that when she made the bosses transparent they would find all the filth, close down the circle and the movie would end in this tech free world or something like that but no. I was really surprised to see that instead of getting rid of all of this she uses that as an escamotage to really fully expand it EVERYWHERE. Complete annihilation of privacy. A really interesting concept.
On the other hand I kind of did not understand some sequences of the movie. I cannot comprehend how easily it was for her to access the big databases, I don't really understand if the founder was running away and hiding from the company or if they knew where he was all the time. Some dynamics really feel just offsetting and make you kind of uncomfortable, but I guess that is the general purpose of the movie, to show that, if really exasperated, technology can be dangerous.
Overall, a nice movie, not mind-blowing or anything, but a cool watch nonetheless
'The circle' aims high, manages to perform well until about halfway, then it crashes in a rather lackluster and unresolved ending.
I did not know much about this movie before going in, except for it having a stellar cast with Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, Karen Gillan (someone I always like seeing), Bill Paxton and Patton Oswalt. After watching the movie I was very surprised by discovering the utter trash reviews it got from both critics and fans. I can see its flaws, but I do not agree this amount of low-balling is something the movie deserves in my humble opinion.
Warning: Light spoilers ahead. (Heavy spoilers are hidden.)
Let's start at the beginning; Mae (played by Emma Watson) is a 20-something girl living somewhere in the near future in the San Fransisco area. She has a dead-end job at a customer service company, and she isn't happy. Her life goes nowhere, and she feels bad for not being able to help her dad, who suffers from MS. The story kick starts when her friend sets her up for an interview with a high-profile tech company. From this point onwards things start to snowball, and Mae gets pulled deeper and deeper into her work until she becomes like a social media, pop star-like, mascot for the company.
'The circle' follows a conventional third person storytelling with 3 tightly structured acts. It is based on the book with the same name written by Dave Eggers. The story revolves around a fictional company called 'The circle' which is an obvious possible future mirror of Apple, but can also represent Google, Facebook, Samsung, Amazon or other tech giants we know today. The main dilemma is about the discussion of privacy vs. transparency, a question notably relevant in today's world concerning tech companies and public surveillance. It also touches upon the value of friendship, family, self confidence and a late coming-of-age story of a 20-something year old.
The initial set up is done well, but nothing special. We get introduced to the main character her life; her family, most important friends, her first days at 'the circle' and its community. The first signs of trouble arrive when Mae is confronted by not having set up her social media profile at the company after a week of being there. After this the stakes slowly get higher and higher, something that is subtly (but a bit too obviously) paced. The most intriguing thing that the movie does is taking that initial dilemma, and move the line that needs to be crossed slightly further every time. It reminded me a bit of the 1981 film 'The Wave' which was based on a real life experiment by a teacher in Germany. A teacher showed the dangers of populism and fascism by slowly setting a more extreme boundary, so he avoided a 'shock effect' and the people (students) kept following him. The difference is that the jumps are sometimes a bit too big in 'The Circle'. It looks like the movie wants to make you think about the questions it asks its characters more than giving an in-world experience. My guess is that this is why the movie bombed with both critics and audience.
This also goes for the ending; when Mae turns the tables on the bosses of the company (played by Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt) it is unclear if she wants to continue the direction the company is heading in and even widen it, or is actually out on stopping it but knows it is already too late and the end result will be inevitable at this point. Again I think the movie rather wants to hold up a mirror to our current society and not make a finished product with all the answers. Even though I sympathise with this, it is not executed well enough and the ending might be either too ambiguous or not ambiguous enough with Mae sitting in her kajak surrounded by drones. Could this be a result from her choice? Or was it an inevitable thing?
The actors portraying the main characters are performing ok overall. Nobody really gave a bad performance, but there were no little moments where they actually shine either. The chemistry between characters was lacking sometimes because of clunky dialogue, most notably the chemistry between Mae (Emma Watson) and Annie (Karen Gillan) was rather lacking, and it made the toilet scene rather dull. Also the public fight between Mae and Mercer (Ellar Coltrane) was a bit cringy and lacked common sense. The best scenes were in the beginning of the movie, with Mae seeing her dad (played by Bill Paxton) having problems and Mae being thankful for Annie helping her and her parents. The characters and performances shined best on itself, with Karen Gillan being the highlight in the non-verbal acting.
The movie has a comforting use of lightning, and there are some beautiful set pieces and location shots and/or photography. It sets a consistent colour palet and tone for its settings, which is usually agreeing with a positive Silicon valley kind of mentality. This contrasts the dark undertone the movie has, and to me that was something I really enjoyed. It mimics reality where the positivity of technology often outshines (or simply ignores) the risks. Also the implementation of the technology was rather seamless. It was obviously there, but it was never too surreal or too much. Music was rather minimalistic and fitting, but except for a handful of scenes never more than just some complimentary background music.
Even though this movie has many flaws, I enjoyed watching it thoroughly. It hinges between a documentary of social decay and a satire comedy drama. Even though it fails to be any of those perfectly, it does well as a society commentary and only drops the ball in being a bit too obvious and never delivering on it's hinted solution.
I was very intrigued by one of the comments Mae received, which stated "No one at the circle has kids." This insinuated that the circle has no future, and even though the questions this movie asks are relevant, I doubt this movie will stay relevant for very long considering its bad reception.
I've just finished watching this movie in the cinema (3 hours before this comment).
I liked the movie mainly because of the ethical issues that it raises around its theme (despite some things are unfortunately already happening nowadays).
Emma and Hanks played very well their roles but, for example, Hanks' character Eamon Bailey wasn't that Forrest Gump which allowed Hanks to show us what he does best.
The character Ty could have been so much more explored too...
So, in the end, I felt like the movie was too short... not in time, but in exploring such a powerful and important ethical topic about the present and future of full social interaction or "transparency" as they called.
I think this movie should have at least one sequel showing what could happen after the end scene, now that everybody is "transparent", for example.
If it has a sequel I'll be sure to come back here and give it an 8 instead of a 7.
It may seem too high of a rate for some people, and if it wasn't for Emma Watson and Tom Hanks I wouldn't probably be so impatient to go watch it in the day after the release date, but as I said... I loved the theme!
I definitely recommend you to watch The Circle, but don't go too critic about it. Just enjoy it and think "what if it was my turn to be transparent?"... when it comes to us it's always different and that's the point the movie does explore well!
Cheers!
The strong cast elevate this film up a rank or two.
'The Circle' ends up being laced with unfulfilled potential. I like a lot of what I saw, but the film needed to take a much deeper dive into the aspects that they portray.
Emma Watson gives a good performance as Mae, she's definitely the standout. Tom Hanks (Eamon) and Patton Oswalt (Tom) fit well, though their characters aren't delved into enough; similarly with John Boyega's Ty, who is severely underused.
There are many things they could've went more deep into, especially the clearly harsher intentions of Eamon and Tom. I'm also sure Ty has much more intrigue about him that we don't see. Even with Mae's parents, it would've been nice to see more of their story.
This film also features the cringey/fake sense of improved workplace morale that these type of productions do; reminiscent of films like 'The Intern' and 'The Internship'. 2005's 'The Island' has a somewhat similar premise to this, but goes without the aforementioned and it makes for way more compelling viewing.
Watson, Hanks et al. certainly raise my feelings for it, but I would've loved to see this take a much more in-depth, darker look into its world.
Movie Review: “The Circle” Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
“The Circle,” starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, asks an important question: it privacy a silly relic of the past? Mae (Emma Watson) gets a job at The Circle, a massive silicon valley company intentionally patterned after Facebook and Google. She settles into the company, which operates from an idyllic, park-like campus in a massive building shaped like a circle. Soon, she’s assisting customers and pressured into joining the herd mentality of the Circle staff members.
Run by Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks), the Circle uses it’s Facebook-like reach to “help” users by infiltrating every aspect of their daily lives, and is actively working to “help” more people by creating even more ways to invade their privacy. Their new initiative, “SeeChange,” involves placing miniature cameras everywhere. Eamon Bailey says the omnipresent camera system is designed to save people, but in a way that virtually eliminates any concept of privacy in public. “Knowing is good but knowing everything is better,” Bailey says at one point. But the new system, which Mae tests, exposes everything she does to a online audience, bringing embarrassment for herself and tragedy for those around her.
Ultimately, the movie fails on its promise as the story gets muddled in the middle when the story abruptly changes direction and Emma Watson’s character becomes an integral part of the company. She must then decide whether or not to go along with the founder’s schemes or expose them. I feel like the script needed another round or two of revisions to work out some of the obvious plot issues, and the ending is strange. I’ll leave it for you to decide, but I thought the ending was a weird and somewhat creepy cop-out.
The Circle, directed by James Ponsoldt, is based on a book by David Eggars, and stars Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role, John Boyega. Released in 2017. Interestingly, Emma Watson’s parents are played by Bill Paxton, who died before the film's release, and Glenne Headly, who died two months after the film’s release.
Review by FinFanBlockedParentSpoilers2017-07-13T14:22:11Z
So, I got this book for my birthday called "The Circle". The Story sounded interesting but to be honest I struggled through every page and tossed it away about half way through because I couldn´t stand that stupid, naive, onedimensional and brainwashed character of Mae that sucked up every bit of that corporate crap she´s been served without even as much as a little doubt. (it´s much worse in the book). I mean how stupid can one be ? OK, I´ll take that back I know such people myself.
Anyway, now they made it into a movie and I thought "well, at least I could see how it ends". The plot is still interesting and it is something we all should think about because it is already beginning to happen. Like in real life we are sold BS about the benefits and while at least here they are showing some of the dark sides they make nothing out of it in the end. Yes the villains are exposed but instead of The Circle being shut down the writer/author sells us the same BS again that everything is fine. We will reform The Circle and make it a benefical for society. Like someone mentioned before: If the leaders are watched too why complain ?
So the biggest flaws of the story are rooted in the book. You needn´t bother watching it really. The cast is wasted on this. And the author of the book wasted an opportunity to write something great out of a good initial idea. Instead of criticism he said "don´t worry there are supposed to be bumps in the road but everything will be fine in the end". And that´s when you start to worry.