Circle squarely settles for safe
The Circle
(out of 4) Starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks. Co-written and directed by James Ponsoldt. Opens Friday at GTA theatres. 110 minutes. PG-13. The future is now and it’s scary. Too bad The Circle isn’t.
The film tackles some of the most alarming issues of the digital age: the pervasiveness of cameras everywhere, the creeping influence of Internet-based corporations into every aspect of daily life and the looming end of personal privacy.
Unfortunately, director James Ponsoldt does so with a muted clarion when what’s needed is a bullhorn.
That doesn’t make The Circle a bad film, just one that under-engages the audience.
Emma Watson plays Mae, a lowly customer service rep who lands a dream job at The Circle, an Applelike corporation with an ersatz utopian headquarters in the Silicon Valley.
Mae quickly comes into the favour of CEO Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) and chief lackey, Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt), becoming a lab rat for a new tiny personal camera that follows your every move and brings you avast audience of twittering Internet voyeurs.
Bailey binds Mae closer to the company by extending health-care coverage to her parents — her dad is seriously ill — and waxes eloquent in weekly speeches to his devoted “circlers” about the merits of “a world without secrets.”
Hints are offered as to the corporation’s ability to pull strings with the fall of one politician and the rise of another and cultlike group dynamics among “circlers” pervades.
None of the performances are poor, but they’re all too understated. Watson (Hermione of Harry Potter fame) is mildly appealing as a protagonist with a hint of mettle. More passion would have helped.
Hanks plays Bailey as an affably benevolent overlord with but a mere trace of Mephistophelean menace. More would have been better. Oswalt merely simpers as Stenton, a wan Igor in Bailey’s Frankenstein-ian designs.
Ellar Coltrane (the boy in 2014’s Boyhood) has some nice moments as Mercer, a friend who becomes entangled in The Circle’s web. Glenne Headley and recently deceased Bill Paxton are two fine actors but their roles as Mae’s parents are close to thankless.
Ponsoldt plays it too safe all around, failing to infuse the story with the urgency it requires and in delivering a rewarding climax.
As a result, The Circle is squarely disappointing.
The director plays it too safe all around, failing to infuse the story with the urgency it requires and in delivering a rewarding climax