The Circle

Dir: James Ponsoldt

2017

**

James Ponsoldt was filming re-shoots for The Circle just four months before the film was released. These re-shoots were done to make Emma Watson’s character seem more appealing following initial test screenings but apparently the second test audience reaction was even worse than the first before the re-shoots. This total lack of understanding one’s audience is all you need to know about why The Circle is such a failure. Don’t get me wrong, even the worst written and badly performed films seem to get away with it these days and I would take most test screenings in this day and age with a huge pinch of salt but you can’t change the fundamentals. The Circle – story and characters – had no integrity to them whatsoever. Emma Watson’s character was flawed from the very beginning from a complete lack of development. She went from one to a hundred within a matter of seconds and nearly every aspect of her was contradicted. Watson was good at making her character seem suitably nervous at the start of the film but the scenes where she became openly confident are incredibly cringe-worthy. There is an unfortunate smugness to the film that I think really failed the original story, it reminded me of the Now You See Me films which I have issue with. That said, the film does deal with a large Apple-like tech company which is lead by a CEO who one could compare to Steve Jobs. Many large companies such as Apple and google who seem to be casual places to work, but in truth they’re fiercely competitive and conformity is expected, although the employees are so indoctrinated in the brand they mistake it for loyalty. There are many interesting aspect of modern technology and how it effects society to explore, but The Circle just clumsy stumbles through all of them without ever making a valid statement or answering an intelligent question. One minute the film is about globalization, the next minute it is exploring how we share information in the modern age and then suddenly it’s a full blown Orwellian Big Brother nightmare. Most of the supporting characters offer nothing in terms of narrative or depth of story – they are largely redundant. While I can’t quite understand brand loyalty in the modern age, the cult-like status that the company controls its workforce is a little contrived. Again, it doesn’t help when our protagonist’s strong views are suddenly switched after a short conversation. The film basically suggests that the majority of society is dumb and easily manipulated, which of course is true, but it suggests so in the dumbest most manipulative way possible and it seems to have failed to convince anyone. Dave Eggers’ stories are better than this but then he did co-write the screenplay. A Hologram For A King was a good adaptation I thought, but The Circle had a lot to say, it should have been great. Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt were fine in their roles but the film comes with quite a bit of sadness when you realise that this was to be Bill Paxton’s last role before he died and Glenne Headly’s penultimate performance before her death just a few months after – especially when their last scene was an awkward sex scene. A sad film all round really.