The Circle Review
Let’s start this review off right: The Circle straight up sucks. This is a huge disappointment for me because co-writer and director James Ponsoldt has given us excellent material before like the best film of 2013 by my view, The Spectacular Now (2013) and The End of the Tour (2015), which I liked as well. Now with The Circle he takes a major step back with a film that has an intriguing premise that goes overboard, dull acting, and one of the worst messages of any film I’ve ever seen. I think I’ll have my revenge on the viewing experience of this film with this review.
So the film follows Mae, played by Emma Watson, who is your stereotypical California girl who likes kayaking, cares for her ailing father, and other stuff. Her friend gets her an interview at The Circle, where she works in customer service. She also becomes acquainted with one of the higher-ups at The Circle, played by Tom Hanks, who displays these new portable cameras that are the size of a small rock and can camouflage into their environment. After an incident, Mae discovers that these little cameras saved her life, forever altering her perspective on how The Circle works and she quickly becomes an internet celebrity, but at what cost?
This sounds like an intriguing premise, doesn’t it? Well, the execution of the film shows you that even a moderately entertaining premise like this one can lead to a disaster of a film. So did I like anything about it? Well, yes, in fact. Tom Hanks. His character shows in a couple of scenes where he addresses his co-workers Steve Jobs style why he thinks like he thinks and the reasoning behind his consuming everything social media and internet related, and his perspective is a fresh one that makes you sympathize to a degree with his at times outlandish thinking and decision making. He also gets the only humorous moment in the film, and it’s his last line. Also the first ten or so minutes fooled me into thinking the film wouldn’t be that bad and there’s some sharp dialogue that is the only example of smart writing the film can bolster. Yep, that’s about it. Let’s get into the negatives.
First off, Emma Watson’s American accent? I just didn’t buy it. She kept sounding like she was trying hard to keep it out of the way. One of the poorest aspects of the film is also the performance from Ellar Coltrane. The guy showed he did have talent in Boyhood (2014), but his monotone, one-note and disinterested performance here just makes the film worse. You can tell he regrets his decision to sign on the dotted line to take this role. Plus his character just isn’t that interesting, so his parts of the film are a total loss. Also featured is a character played by John Boyega, whose role in the film is a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll keep that under wraps, but basically he wants The Circle to end. While he is a big focus in the first act, his character disappears from the second act and only has a two minute wrap-up scene in the third act. What a total waste of a good talent, and what a horrible way to treat that character. He could have been a major component but instead he’s a minor annoyance to the film’s ultimate goal, which we’ll get to in a minute, but I’m not done grilling the acting yet. We’ve also got one of the final performances from the late Bill Paxton here, and it’s a shame I’ll have to think of this film and his role in it when I think back on the actor. His role as a father with MS and being so physically weak is not the way I want to think of the late actor, so that makes me like the movie even less. Okay, so let’s get down to what made me go from just not liking the film and caring for any characters to being downright pissed off leaving the cinema: the final message that the main audience goes home with. Basically the end message of the film, as displayed in earlier scenes, too, is that if you are not constantly tweeting, instagraming, snapchatting, or involved in social media then you’re not a part of society, you don’t matter, and there’s something wrong with you. Now as somebody who would associate themselves as somewhat anti-social, that really offended my intelligence. Hey, I have all of these: I have a twitter, instagram, and snapchat, and Facebook. Just because I’m not on the damn thing constantly doesn’t mean I hate it and there’s something wrong with me; I just choose not to display my whole life for all to see. Just because I don’t post on Instagram what I’m having for dinner doesn’t make me some kind of social media villain. Jesus, these people are messed up. The film also has the agenda of making sure we’re all monitored 100% of the time, which again pissed me off. Have any of these characters ever heard of invasion of privacy? Now, they do have some points with that, like catching criminals and finding lost persons, but we all know what constant surveillance also brings: the opportunity for creeps online to spy on teens and children, the ability to get into top secret meetings, and so on, but the film breezes by the negatives of constant surveillance and pretends they don’t exist. What a goddamn joke.
All right, it’s time to calm down. Shame on the actors for taking on this project, and extra shame on director and co-writer James Ponsoldt. This is not a great career move. As somebody who admires his work greatly, I’m concerned he’s losing a step. Luckily the film isn’t hitting with audiences either, so perhaps there is hope for the Millennials out there who aren’t already hooked onto their phones and laptops with social media. Just take my advice: log off every once in a while and enjoy the world for what it is and don’t be focused on getting all the likes, being the center of attention, and go ahead and flip off those surveillance cameras. Log off of The Circle.
My rating: 3/10.
