The Circle
by George Wolf
Warning: your uploads could have a downside. The cloud? Might get dark and stormy.
Despite noble intentions of The Circle, it’s often this obvious and cheesy in its quest to alert us to the growing invasion of our privacy.
Mae Holland (Emma Watson) is thrilled when her friend Annie (Karen Gillan) get her a foot in the door at The Circle, the gold standard of tech companies. After the most hip of hipster interviews, Mae joins The Circle in an entry level position and is positively starry-eyed to be so close to Circle guru Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks, GD national treasure) and COO Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt).
But, in one of the film’s most painfully forced scenes, two Circle employees stop by to tell Mae that even though her work is fine, their records show she’s not taking advantage of the ‘social” aspects of The Circle, and she won’t be a true member of the “community” until she gets with the super happy program!
Do you think she does?
Director James Ponsoldt has impressed with The End of the Tour and Smashed, while writer Dave Eggars, adapting his own novel with help from Ponsoldt, penned Where the Wild Things Are and Away We Go. Those are fine resumes, but The Circle is crafted more like a young adult re-imagining of 1984.
Mae’s specialness is realized right away, and as she rises quickly through the ranks, her previously peppy and pretty friend Annie starts showing up to meetings looking like a zombie in sweats. Subtle. And who’s this new friend Ty (John Boyega)? Apparently all the cameras and data crunchers on campus weren’t alarmed by his constantly suspicious lurking, but one look at Mae, and of course Ty knows he can trust her with his secrets.
Hanks is perfect as the Steve Jobs-like figure Bailey, affably spouting mantras such as “secrets are lies” and “privacy is theft,” with a disarmingly inviting malevolence. Watson, after a solid turn in Beauty and the Beast, is just over-matched to the point where pained faces stand in for real emoting.
While the film takes on a serious and credible subject, it only seems interested in diving surface deep. Altering the book’s original ending doesn’t help, and The Circle feels like a cop out, downplaying any aspect that could have given it more urgency and settling for melodrama that already feels outdated.
