Movie of the Week: “The Circle”
What would you think of working at a technology giant, a mix of Google, Facebook, Pixar, Sony and Apple? And not only have a great salary, health insurance, tons of leisure activities and even an apartment in the company’s headquarter?To get this, just apply for the company tha gives the name to the movie, “The Circle” (USA, 2017).
Mae (Emma Watson) is a young woman on her first professional steps, who dreams of having a more interesting job while suffering from a dramatic family situation with a father with multiple sclerosis. Her life is a boring routine, divided between the teleworking bureaucracy in a water company, and the sadness of her father’s condition, which deteriorates every day.
Everything changes when she receives a call from her friend Annie (Karen Gillan), informing her that she has been selected for an interview at The Circle, the world’s largest technology and social media company.Mae does well in the interview, and is hired for a customer service position.
Soon she realizes that everything in the Circle is very different of any other company. Consisting mostly of young people, the company unites all kinds of information from social networks, and its latest release is a prodigious microcamera, capable of transmitting sound and image with great quality without any type of wires.
Mae is relieved when she receives support from the company for the health of her father, while being encouraged by the messianic founder of the company Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks), who perceives in the girl a great potential as a company symbol for internal and external market.
The company’s proposals always lead to a total sharing of information of all kinds, and Mae joins that project by using a personal camera that accompanies her 24 hours a day.
Something, however, bothers the young woman, especially when she discovers that there is no more privacy for anyone, and that this invasion leads to an announced tragedy.She will have to make decisions that will affect not only her life, but even of all Humanity.
Maybe the reader will find this theme too futuristic, but we already live in times when our privacy is brazenly invade, often with our involuntary help. Besides the willingness of people to expose their own lives, everything that we search, buy or visit on the internet is collected and sold to companies with goals that are not always noble.
More dangerous still is the use of media exposure to target someone, using people’s indignation, unaware that they are being maliciously manipulated. This happens in politics, in commerce and even in interpersonal relationships, like the ex that exposes intimate photos of the companion, for example.
“The Circle” is a cry of alert disguised of entertainment, showing that we walk to a world of media slavery, where the one who has the information has the power – this in the literal sense.
The film brings some curiosities that cause strangeness for us Brazilians, such as having to register to vote in an election. As our election is mandatory, we do not need this action, which happens in countries with optional vote.
As one would expect, the graphic effects are fascinating, and the locations at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, really bring a futuristic ambience.
Emma Watson definitely gets rid of Hermione Granger, her character from the Harry Potter saga, becoming more and more a professional and competent actress. Tom Hanks also runs away from his “good guy” standard, doing a mix of businessman and evangelical priest who represents the perfect villain of our days – and clearly inspired by Steve Jobs’s image. Also noteworthy is Bill Paxton’s performance as a carrier of multiple sclerosis.
“The Circle” is an interesting film that escapes from the commonplace, and that awakens a reflection about the world in which we live and want – or are induced to – arrive.
Original Title: “The Circle”