The Circle
(2017)Knowing is good. Knowing everything is better.
Sci-fi thriller starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, based on the novel by McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Two-time Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) directs.... More
As she rises through the ranks of the world’s largest tech and social media company, The Circle, Mae (Watson) is encouraged by company founder Eamon Bailey (Hanks) to live her life with complete transparency. But no one is really safe when everyone is watching.Hide
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Directed by James Ponsoldt ('The End of the Tour', 'Smashed', 'The Spectacular Now')
Starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, Karen Gillan, Bill Paxton, John Boyega, Patton Oswalt, Ellar Coltrane, Nate Corddry, Elvy Yost
Written by James Ponsoldt (based on the novel of the same name by Dave Eggers)
Out Now (On-Demand,
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The Circle
BY cinemusefilm superstar
Stuck in a dead-end job, Mae Holland (Emma Watson) gets the chance of a lifetime to work with the world’s biggest intelligence surveillance company called The Circle. It’s a dream workplace with thousands of employees and every conceivable benefit, but it also expects 24/7 commitment and social involvement. She comes to the attention of the guru-styled CEO Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) who nurtures her advancement in the company. It turns out that she is a natural at selling Eamon’s ideas for increasing employee surveillance and she even volunteers to wear a constant monitoring camera. She becomes the company’s high-profile propagandist for transparency and the dispensability of personal privacy. The company introduces automatic voter registration for employees and its own preferred congressional candidate. It wants to extend Circle accounts to the entire population and link everyone to the electoral process. Unexpected things happen when the transparency lens is turned inward on the company.
So why is this film being thoroughly trashed? Emma Watson is difficult to watch without seeing her Hermione halo, but she is perfect for a role that calls for naïve understatement. Tom Hanks plays a likeable baddie with his usual over-reliance on those adorably furrowed Scully eyebrows. But describing this film as a futuristic sci-fi thriller has raised expectations that are impossible to meet when its narrative suspense curve is mostly flat and its technology already available. Then there is that feeling where someone is lecturing you about the dangers of believing technological masterminds with a script that often sounds somewhere between melodrama and corny.
There is one redeeming feature that makes this film undeserving of universal panning. It modernises the Orwellian techno-dystopia with a core premise that is not as absurd as some might think. The sheer scale of economic and political power of today’s mega technology empires surpasses that of contemporary government and they have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to distort democracy everywhere it exists. If fake news can sway elections, what can real-time online manipulations of voting behaviour do? Audiences and critics do not like being mocked for their willingness to be herded like sheep into digital dependence. The warnings in this film hit home.Hide
The Press Reviews
"The Circle" is a swankly sinister little mind teaser of a thriller. It's a nightmare vision of what digital culture is turning all of us into, with all of our help. Full Review
Certain plot points might seem far-fetched, but only until you think of similar things that have already happened, similar liberties that have been happily surrendered by users of popular networks. Full Review
The Circle is all juicy potential and precious little else. Full Review
A middling, choppily edited mess. Full Review
Lampooning the simple-mindedness of utopian web clichés was arguably part of Mr. Eggers's point, but much of that point is often muddled in the book. And it's simply incoherent in the movie. Full Review
If in ten years we look back on it and think, "Yep, they got it right," we'll really be screwed. We'll probably still think the movie isn't very good, though. Full Review
Movies about the dangers of rampant interconnectivity are welcome in this day and age, but let's please make them a little more courageous. Full Review
The Circle deserves praise for thoughtfulness. Full Review
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