The Circle (2017):
This is what happens when the thematic denseness of Black Mirror goes wrong. This aspires to be a dark, biting commentary on the perils of modern technology and all the underlying social issues it is going to raise, and indeed has raised. But the themes are sold short by the blunt badgering of the movie's central message with a hammer the size of Thor's, an uninteresting set of characters and tech-y, pop-uppy imagery used to convey all the modern gizmos (it was never going to work in a movie very well).
I have read this book, and it is fine. It is prescient enough. It worked slightly better in the book, as the ideas were given time to flesh out (it is a pretty big book, but a breezy read).
I wanted to see and enjoy this movie as techno-paranoia/social commentary movies can be really, really good: Dark City, The Matrix, Her, and aforementioned Black Mirror. The biggest sin this movie commits is that it never lets you see that why The Circle might actually inspire love and adulation. From the get go you are supposed to hate it, know that there is something sinister about it, and all the people there except Mae (in the beginning, at least, when she is questioning things, albeit very softly) are sheeple really. That to me was such an uninspired choice: the overt and extreme evilness of Circle. These are very relevant themes these days: invasion of privacy, real time collection of user data by social media giants without the user's consent, etc, etc. It doesn't do the questions any good if the position taken by the movie is so extreme and one note.
I literally laughed out loud when at one point, Emma Watson's character goes I am going fully transparent and the crowd bursts into applause and literally start chanting Mae Mae Mae. Fuck me.
To be fair, the movie does kick into good mode for a while immediately after Mae starts using the SeeChange. But then Annie's character flips side, without any reason. Did not make any sense. In the book there were several events that led to it. Were not at all touched upon in the film. The central set piece of the third act is the SoulSearch presentation that is supposed to be Mae's eventual undoing (another flip - one that doesn't happen in the book, by the way, it has a much darker ending). That scene is so over the top that it is impossible to believe that 2 billion people will go along with that shit. Even in the highest of science fictions, some suspension of disbelief is way too much because it goes against the structure of human psyche.
The cast boasts some great names. I like Emma Watson's acting in general, but here she is given a dull lead role. I liked Mae's transformation in the book from cautious outsider and skeptic to inspiring soldier in the front lines. We see it happen slowly and gradually, we see her getting pulled in by the allure of this place. But here it is so sudden: one minute she is having an argument with Mercer (a character that literally exists to explain the other side of the equation) in which overindulgence in technology has clearly resulted in harm, but 5 minutes later after a kayaking accident and a small conversation with Tom Hanks, she is Mrs. Circle. This is despite the insistence of John Boyega's character, whom she befriends, that this company is sinister. You know, the one he founded. He likes to walk among the people now, man, that's why he has gone incognito. It's so edgy.
Speaking of Tom Hanks, he has enough charisma to carry this underwritten role, and you can see how this man may inspire the people working for him. Patton Oswalt is so wasted here. Such an amazing actor with so little to do. The late Bill Paxton has a strong, tear jerking role.
Their Finest (2016):
A few raw, uncompiled thoughts on this movie:
- It ain't subtle, that's for sure, in all its themes: romance, war, propaganda or girl power. A well made crowd pleaser, that's for sure - not necessarily a bad thing.
- I like movies about movies and focus on process of writing. That worked for me, even though it was a very rosy look at that whole thing. Gets slightly boring in the middle part, moves at a snail's pace. The full runtime could also have trimmed a bit and I wouldn't have minded.
- Gemma Artenton is amazing in the lead role. I am guilty of associating her just by her looks (can you blame me? I mean, look at her. Yes, I am a pretty shallow person. One of the first times that I saw her, back when I was 16, 17, maybe, I wrote these indelible words: She was beautiful. Not in an ordinary sense of the word. She was beautiful as if the devil carved her himself to tempt humanity.).
But I shouldn't have doubted her leading lady abilities as I have seen her do great work in movies like Byzantium and even Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
- Bill Nighy steals the show in every scene, seemingly effortlessly.
- Helen McCrory needs to be in more things. And Sam Claflin is good as well. Jeremy Irons has a good cameo.
- The central romance plot is very, very cliched: subtlety (though not that much) insinuate that everything is not hunky dory even if that is how itl looks, introduce a love interest who stimulates the leading lady on a intellectual level, then they made the husband a cheating asshole to give her a reason to go back to Buckley. That's like romance script 101. And that twisty thing, they pulled off, granted it was well done. Overall: predictable. But it's okay. No one said this was a very well written movie.
- I am starting to believe that Lone Scherfig is really a romantic at heart.
