‘The Circle Must Be
Broken’
Starring Emma Watson, Tom
Hanks, John Boyega and Karen Gillan.
Written by James Ponsoldt
who also directed.
Imagine working as a
telesales person, going nowhere. Imagine watching your Dad cope with the
debilitating disease, MS and know that if he had the insurance, he could get
specialist treatment to help him achieve the smallest of goals. Imagine a
place, that held everything you would ever need on one campus. Where your
social life, home life was dominated by a computer screen, and that everybody
who worked there, would be on one massive friend group that you would need to
add, to avoid being a cast out.
In a world dominated by
social media, where Youtubers give you a blow by blow account of their day,
where personal liberties are broken and where there is no such thing as
personal space and anonymity, the Circle is a frightening look into a world
where Everybody Knows Your Name. Knows your business and invades your private
life.
We are all curious about
our neighbour; the people we follow on social media and what they are doing in
their daily lives. The Eye’s in the Sky are following your every move and even
having sex is available for all to see through the use of the watch on your
wrist, linked to the cameras in your home.
But that’s the price you
pay for being ‘transparent’.
It may save your life if
you fall out of your kayak, but its intrusiveness is draining on your time,
your family and your friends.
When you become popular
within the Circle and your friend who helped get you in, are pushed out of the
limelight. When your family refuse to be filmed as they miss their privacy.
When your best friend is killed because of the ‘hunt’ you agreed to in order to
satisfy those you were converting to your idea. And to save face in front of
the man who invented the intrusive little camera and who created The Circle who
also put you on the spot.
When you introduce
yourself to a mystery man interested in whatever is on his phone, even though
it’s only sometime later when you realise who he really is, and he leads you
into his world, explaining who he is, what he does, and what The Circle is
really all about, do you discover some things about the Circle yourself that
make you think.
But then you enter into
the entirety of The Circle by making your world transparent – whereby you open
yourself to the world, to comments about your physical being – where you’re
judged by your actions, be it good or bad.
But, when you’re top of
your game, and you turn the tables on the actual people running the show, in
front of a live audience and right across the internet, globally – now that’s a
game changer.
There’s no guns, no edge
of the seat, jump scares. There’s no dramatic car chases – well maybe one, but
not in the usual sense. Emma Watson plays Mae, the young telesales operative
who through friend Karen Gillan, is given the opportunity of working in The
Circle, so long as she passes the interview first.
The Circle was created by
forward thinker Tom Hanks, who wanted to give his disabled son something to
look at.
A few days ago, on the
internet, a young mother was dying of cancer, and her wife asked random people
to help complete a bucket list that covered a lot of places in a lot of
different countries, and through the power of the internet, many hundreds of
individuals added their photos and their stories, making the bucket list
something memorable for the family.
That made me think of
Hanks’ son in the film, because his father had asked people to add their
stories, their photographs, their lives for his son to watch. I can’t remember
what his son suffered from, but it was a debilitating disease, as far as I can
recall.
The story itself reminded
me of the countless nights of catching up with several Youtubers talking
randomly about their day, from what they were doing to where they were going,
and we’d sit through endless hours and for a while we’d be hooked on the lives
of Zoella and Alfie and a pug named Alan!
Once you become
transparent, you open your life up to the world. Just like Zoella, and Alfie,
and Thatcher Joe, you invite complete strangers to see you from the moment you
wake up, to when you clean your teeth before bed. The cameras would be on you
throughout your life. They would be there when you visited the bathroom, took a
walk in the park, paddled your kayak out in the open water. If you met with
family or friends.
It would work against you.
It had access to private data. It could track people anywhere, at any time.
It was Big Brother.
It was frightening to think
that beyond the CIA and the FBI, that a social interactive media platform could
have that much power to do what it wanted, and nobody could stop it. Except
when you are able to turn the tables on those who created it.
Karen Gillan’s role was
more of a supportive role but she played a fairly rounded character. She was
integral to the story and the character played by Watson.
It was one of those films
that I’d been toying with watching but wasn’t sure if it was going to be
another ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ style film, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
The pace never let up
once, there were no dips or pauses. Although I’d had the film on in the
background while I worked on a 1000 piece cardboard procrastination, I
soon put it aside to focus on the film.
It’s currently on Netflix,
it’s well worth a watch, even if you do have it on in the background for the
first half of the film.
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