Woohoo, Big Brother is hiring! Just in case you ever reminisced for the future of 1997, writer/director James Ponsoldt is here to have to you fear anew the lack of privacy ushered in by the information age in The Circle. As an all-powerful Silicon Valley combination of Apple & Facebook, The Circle puts the smiley face emoji on our collective modern accountability prison. The film thus acts as some sort of libertarian anti-big brother tirade. It’s not that this message advocating for personal privacy is necessarily misdirected, it’s just about as subtle as an Apple product launch and horribly dated twice over: 1) If you’re warning us about how little privacy we’ll have in the internet age, you’re just about 15-20 years behind the curb. 2) In the current political climate, transparency is a necessity among policy influencers in the United States. Look around you — smaller government advocates aren’t losing a lot of battles these days.
Mae (Emma Watson) is a “guppy” at The Circle. Being the new girl at this enormous workplace Eden, her job is CE (“Customer Enforcement?” No, that can’t be right. “Customer Enhancement,” maybe? Look, she’s on the phones, ok). It’s hard not to be drawn to the allures of The Circle: The airy workspace, the built-in amenities, yoga or cricket at lunch with 900 of your new best friends, and –most of all- every Friday morning, your superfly zillionaire-in-jeans CEO Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) has the funnest assemblies, yay! This is where he pleasantly touts the benefits of fascism. Of course, he doesn’t say, “fascism,” he calls it “accountability.”
The trouble starts for Mae a week after starting her job when two HR people insist she needs to be hooked up; she’s practically a company black hole what with the only using three of her eight personal workscreens; everybody she works with apparently needs to know her cholesterol level and thoughts on “My Little Pony.” After a frustration-induced kayaking episode (you read that right), Mae tosses her hesitancy and buys in full as the Big Brother spokesmodel; she is going to wear a personal filming device 24/7 so she might be “100% accountable” to the entire world. Congratulations, The Circle, you’ve just invented JenniCam … except instead of anything potentially lurid, she’s a G-rated corporate shill.
This is the huge problem with the movie; it’s so busy preaching, it didn’t really give the story any breathing room. The only thing people with cams on them 24/7 ever truly realize is they don’t want cams on them 24/7. This message is hardly news. I mean, think of how many things one cannot experience without a modicum of privacy. And being the pic
is so heavy handed, I’m left to believe it doesn’t actually have a pro-accountability stance on politicians and billionaire lobbyists. The message that is continually shoved down our throat is: technological gain is societal loss – accountability equals imprisonment.
The particular fear that we live in a Big Brother society is outdated by at least a decade now. The Circle might have had an argument for relevance two years ago had it predated, say, Snowden, but at this moment, it looks like y’all missed the kayak. The timing is especially bad given the current White House –you better believe I want transparency from our elected officials, but again The Circle seems to have missed out: polling suggests Trump voters don’t care the extent to which Trump is held accountable, they don’t care the lengths to which Trump’s decisions over millions are motivated entirely by personal gain. All I can say is you sure as HELL would if Hillary had won. And so would I. In fact, Trump voters, congratulations are in order along these lines – in rejecting a candidate you deemed corrupt because Fox employees kept telling you it was true, you promoted instead the Everest of corruption. Way to vote your values, folks.
And, of course, all of this is irrelevant. The point is no longer that modern technology invites intrusiveness at will; the current point is that the sea of information available today can be misused and privacy is now a sellable commodity. Political power is now defined by who can wield both, which is what makes Donald Trump the most dangerous man the world. Meanwhile, The Circle is worried that intrusiveness has gone too far. Unbelievable.
The Circle is one of those films that re-defines disappointment – such nice people, such a great set-up, and such a crummy political bent crammed into our eyeballs. This film may as well be a political hit-piece. There is delicious irony in knowing a film entitled The Circle painted itself into a corner.
♪I think I hawked it again
I’m making believe we’re filming as friends
Oh baby
It might seem like I care
But this pitch is worse than any time-share
‘Cause to lose all the story
Gosh golly like fer-sher oh gee
Oh, fishy fishy
Oops, I preached it again
I forgot the plot, got last in my rant
Oh chumpy chumpy
Oops, you think there’s a thrill
That I’m not just a shill
I’m not that competent♫
Rated PG-13, 110 Minutes
D: James Ponsoldt
W: James Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers
Genre: Around and around we go
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Libertarians
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Anyone with a respect for subtlety
♪ Parody inspired by “Oops!… I Did It Again”
