Dark ‘Circle’
Watson’s techie gets caught in evil social media plot
‘The Circle” is a supposed thriller — without thrills.
It also lacks common sense, commanding performances or surprise. That's partly because Hollywood has long made movies where big corporations and institutions are bad while individualism is, you know, good.
So it's no surprise that the high-tech California behemoth known as the Circle — think Facebook merged with Apple — initially looks like a workers' and users' paradise. We suspect inner rot instantly. Mae Holland (Emma Watson, channeling Hermione Granger from her “Harry Potter” youth) is rescued from her lowwage job handling online customer complaints at a water company when hyper best friend Annie (a harried Karen Gillan) gets her a lowly post at the Circle.
Mae learns to navigate the upbeat, always positive mindset that is essential to being part of the Circle.
Weekend activities, social media and letting the Circle take over your life is
“voluntary,” notes a perpetually smiling Circler. But of course, it's not.
Essentially a cult, the Circle's purpose is to link everyone — that's literally everyone! — into its system. Sure, Circlers lose all privacy, but for a good cause: They can be monitored, analyzed and protected — from accidents, bad health, you name it.
Mae initially is grateful. The Circle puts her parents in her health plan — her father (the late Bill Paxton) had struggled with uninsured expenses for his MS.
Other than an old beau (Ellar Coltrane, who grew up onscreen in “Boyhood”), Mae has no boyfriend, no romance, only millions of anonymous “friends” when she goes “transparent” to live her life 24/7 online.
That's when the dark cloud hovers over this Circle. Just as obvious as Amphetamine Annie's eventual crash is Mae's eventual realization that total transparency is nuts.
John Boyega (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) is here, wasted with a character whose only purpose is to feed the audience information. Tom Hanks is strictly superficial as the Circle guru.
If this is meant to be Brave New World GOING OFFLINE: Emma Watson (top, and center with, from left, Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt) works for a nefarious technology company. Also working for the Circle is Ty (John Boyega, above). 2017, we already know that losing your privacy is bad.
Or do we?