The Circle Parent Guide

Have you ever noticed how some movies have trailers that turn out to be better than the actual film? That is definitely the case with this one. The promotional footage for The Circle will likely remind viewers of George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Sadly, this tale of a “Big Brother” who is watching you fails to create the same kind of engagement or suspense.

In the 2017 story, Mae Holland (Emma Watson) is delighted to trade her cubical job for an exciting opportunity at a high-tech corporation called “The Circle”. Mimicking real-life Apple, the movie features a character named Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) who is the founder of the organization. He walks the stage each week, introducing the company’s latest products to his crowd of adoring employees. He also preaches the ideology of a transparent society, where the collection of data and camera images will hold people accountable for their actions – and hence create a responsible community of human beings.

At first Mae seems to resist his rhetoric of “Knowing is good—knowing everything is better.” However, when she is offered health benefits for her extended family, including her father (Bill Paxton) who is suffering from MS (multiple sclerosis), Mae quickly “drinks the Kool-Aid”. (She literally does this during a visit to the company doctor where she ingests a liquid that allows all her biological functions to be monitored.)

As Mae becomes more embedded in her work community (or the community becomes more embedded in her), she fails to heed cautions from outsiders, like her mom (Glenne Headly) and high school friend (Ellar Coltrane). And when she starts getting recognition from Eamon Bailey himself, she even turns a deaf ear to the concerns of co-workers such as her buddy Annie (Karen Gillan) who is burning out from job stress, or the software’s original developer Ty (John Boyega) who is disheartened by the way his invention is being used.

And that’s about that same point my sympathy tuned out. If the main character can’t hear the warnings from her parents about giving up her privacy, or see the problems with handing over her agency to an all-powerful corporation that has no restrictions on how they use such information or power, how are young audiences supposed to see the dangers of Mae’s situation? This alarming message is combined with the approval of throwing one’s personal life onto the internet to be judged by the whims of the anonymous public. The film also includes mild and moderate profanity, social drinking, a married couple caught on camera while engaged in sex, and depictions of bullying that lead to tragic consequences.

The production fails from an artistic point of view too. The plot is tedious and neglects opportunities to explore characters’ motives. The performances seem forced and overbearing. Considering the increasing amount of surveillance happening in our modern society, there really were many facets the script could have explored. Instead it assumes, anticlimactically, that the invasion of privacy is a trend that can’t be stopped. For those concerned about such issues, the unbalanced perspective presented here will be one that is hard to swallow.

About author

Donna Gustafson

Donna Gustafson has been involved with her husband Rod's work since the beginning. Handling many of the behind-the-scenes tasks, she also creates preview pages for up-coming movies, acts as managing editor and occasionally writes reviews.