The Circle

This is one of those movies where you need to read the book first. The reason for that is the book is about 500 pages and they needed to cut a lot out and as a result, the editing is a bit choppy, and the film may be confusing as it does move very quickly. But since I did read the book, that wasn't a problem. Some of the best performances of the year are in this film, particularly from Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and John Boyega. However, one of the worst performances of the year is also in this film from Ellar Coltrane. His performance is just awful. Every line from him, without exception, is either without emotion, or just very awkwardly delivered. They really should have given him better direction or hired someone else. Most movies of this nature are very one-sided, but in this film both sides of the argument are delivered very well. You see the positives and negatives to both sides, although the negative sides from Tom Hanks' character's point of view are presented as very manipulitive but that's the point. I wouldn't say Tom Hanks' character is evil or a villain in the way we traditionally think of movie villains, but he's not afraid to deceive and manipulate, and sometimes play on human emotion to get what he wants. He presents this fascist society as a good thing for the betterment of humanity, and preys on common human empathies and sympathies to convince people to side with him. He's not the level of, say, President Snow from "The Hunger Games", but he's pretty close. Whereas Snow uses threats, Hanks' character takes a "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" approach, as do most of the other employees of The Circle. Like I said, you should probably read the book first, or you may get confused because of the choppy editing, but once you've read it, and then seen this you'll be able to piece together the missing elements of the film. Will this win any Oscars? Probably not. but it is still a very important film that everyone needs to see. 

Grade: A-   9/10   4/5 stars