The Circle review

The Circle follows a woman as she starts to work at a tech giant, where she finds out that it may not be as perfect as it seems.

Dave Eggers' book, that this is based on, is really good. It was an easy read that brought up queations regarding technology and privacy in a non-cliche way. It is 491 pages long and the film is just under 2 hours long, so there will be details lost in the adaptation process. But I would have expected key details regarding plot, characters and what The Circle is to be kept in.

That's right, if I hadn't read the book, I don't think I would have known what The Circle is, what it does, who does what, and how it became as big as it is. I understand that exposition overloads are boring, but when the audience is left in the dark about the title company, I wouldn't mind an introductory video in a lift or something. It's this sort of disregard for important details that makes any reveal have little to no impact. For example, there is a reveal concerning a character's identity that would leave anyone who hasn't read the book asking "Who?" before mentally rewinding the film and realising the name was said once in passing.

But really though, what is The Circle? A place for TED talks? Customer service for a non-descript social network? Silicon Valley with a budget? A cult? Apparently The Circle has hundreds of millions of users, who all use a service we are never told about. They made everything so underdeveloped that nothing that happens has any stakes. When characters get offed, it's just kinda out of nowhere and has no impact.

I don't like to compare adaptations to their source material; but I'm going to have to here. The book features a woman named Mae that starts working at The Circle after leaving a job she hates. She uses technology but is not obsessed. As she works at The Circle, she starts to use technology and social media more, until it literally becomes part of her identity. As she becomes more ingrained in The Circle, she becomes more and more estranged from her family and friends, eventually resulting in death, overdoses and going off the grid. At the end of the novel she stares at her comatose friend, who is in this condition due to jealousy and isolation caused by Mae and their technology driven culture, and she ponders removing the final wall of privacy in life: making every thoughts public. The novel contains a lot of commentary on how privacy is being taken away as we become more connected. It's very well handled aswell. By the end of the novel Mae has become completely engrossed in The Circle's quest to connect everyone and to share everything. She doesn't get redemption for her decisions that caused pain to others, she gets rewarded and continues to climb social and professional ladders. The dark social commentary is what sets the book apart from the rest of the crowd.

In the film, all of that is lost. Instead they go for the Hollywood ending. Yes, her friend is still killed by her actions. But her relationship with her parents is not ruined, and her friend who overdoses in the book decides to go back to Scotland to clear her mind. Then Mae decides to take up the offer of the founder to take down the company from the inside (one of the most poorly handled plot threads I've ever seen in a film), and she makes everything about the two big bosses known to the public. She does this in an effort to create scandals and to get The Circle shut down or something like that. But where is the commentary in that? "Corporations are bad." Can you really not say more than that, the book says much more than that and does it in a more subtle manner. Did you have too many red dots focused on your chests while you were making the movie?

And somehow Dave Eggers was involved in the adaptation process.

In short: The Circle is a complete waste of potential (you had Tom Hanks).

Sorry if I started to get lost there at the end: I'm writing this way too late and I don't like editing before I post stuff(real smart), so I hope you enjoyed the potential rambling.