The Circle Reviews

The was a good movie plot somewhere in here. A searing commentary on social media and a major broadside shot at Google? A look at how Alphabet has manipulated an entire generation of young idealists looking for a quick way to pay off that French Art Appreciation degree college debt? Somewhere along the way, the plot took an eponymous turn and I was left scratching my head.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a nice cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I was surprised by how weak it actually turned out to be. It’s too bad because it definitely had some potential as it was dealing with such a topical subject. Indeed, some of the ideas developed might seem far-fetched but, as displayed in ‘The Social Dilemma’, a great documentary on the subject, the big high-tech companies are pretending that they are delivering some services tailor-made for the needs of their members but it has become quite clear that it is their members that they are actually constantly tailoring for their needs. Same thing for the omnipresent cameras as, in the UK for example, there are already more than 5 millions CCTV cameras all over the country. So, the ideas were there but, unfortunately, pretty much nothing else really did work though and, in my opinion, the biggest issue was with the characters. Indeed, none of the supporting characters (Bailey, Ty, Mercer, Annie) was fleshed out enough but you could argue that they were not the main focus of this story. Even more problematic was that even the main character didn’t work whatsoever. Indeed, even though the movie was constantly focusing on this girl, we never get to know her properly. I mean, what was her deal? Was she a huge believer of the Circle or was she in fact sceptical? And why the hell did she go kayaking in the middle of the night?!? To make things worse, I always had a weak spot for Emma Watson but, I’m sorry, she was just terribly weak here and she completely failed to show what was going in the mind of her character and what she was going through. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie had some potential, it never really worked and I don’t think it is really worth a look.