The Circle (2017 film) reappraised

We recently rewatched this film, which has some great actors in it, an interesting dystopian story premise, and yet has pretty brutal ratings across most of the major film review websites. We figured it was a re-evaluation however. We watched this film on Netflix via a review collaboration with Netflix Ireland.

First up from Wikipedia ->

The Circle is a 2017 American techno-thriller film directed by James Ponsoldt with a screenplay by Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers, based on Eggers’ 2013 novel of the same name. The film stars Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, as well as John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Ellar Coltrane, Patton Oswalt, Glenne Headly, and Bill Paxton in his final role.

And here is what Rotten Tomatoes thought of it ->

The Circle (2017 film) reappraised

You could call this Harry Potter (Emma Watson)  & Star Wars (John Boyega) versus the evil forces of Toy Story (Tom Hanks). You could argue that John Boyega is under utilised in this film, but he does perform well on screen. Emma Watson, like many UK actors, does feel the need to deliver an American accent, but it’s not terrible and doesn’t distract from the narrative. Though you wonder if she felt it strange that they were confident enough to allow Karen Gillan to speak in her own Scottish accent. In some ways though this does add some credibility as the employee make up of this mega tech companies is usually very internationally mixed.

In terms of the premise, Dave Eggers, the author, whose book the film is drawn from, is a great writer, so the source material is strong. The essence of the film, that big tech does not have our best interests as heart is captured well, and ‘The Circle’ is  accurately and disturbingly reminiscent of some unholy mashup of Google, Apple, Facebook and many many other tech-bro companies out there. The glib declaration of acting in our best interests, to create and nudge us to a ‘better you’ is an accurate distillation of many of Facebooks declarations that have subsequently proved to be actually deeply detrimental and biased towards particular self interests.

Tom Hanks is also pretty excellent as a Steve Jobs-esque black turtle necked leader-guru with a cult like fandom whipped up among his employees. His company talk, with his audience eating out of the palm of his hand, until his radical openness is turned up his own actives is very well portrayed. Overall, across the film, lots of important and relevant issues and concerns are raised. Yes the company often seems too good to be true, unlimited meals, free health care, even for your deeply ill parents, but…, yes, you guessed it, it all comes at a cost.

You could say that this peering behind the curtains is as old as The Wizard of Oz, but that doesn’t make it a poor plot device. The narrative of the innocent, newbie, and their journey from excitement to disillusionment is still a story well worth telling when new megalodons aim to dominate ours lives.

We watched the film with a wide ranging audience in terms of age. Mostly of them were definitely unhappy with the ending. No spoilers coming here! On one hand you could argue that Emma Watson’s character did beat the bad guys, and yet, maybe she didn’t – which takes us into 1984 territory. Namely where the individual is crushed by the system. This is not the ending that we want, but, arguably, we are still in a bad place in terms of us, as individuals, versus the concept of Surveillance Capitalism. Is it possible that many of the poor film reviews were more for not sugar coating the pill we need to swallow rather than due to the quality of the film?

This might not yet be Citizen Kane, but it is a thought provoking movie, which raises issues which are still important and unresolved in our lives. We suggest it is time for a reappraisal of it.

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