How Did The Circle End Up Being This Poorly-Made?

Every director has their misfires in their filmography, with even one of the all-time greats like Steven Spielberg having films like Hook or The Lost World: Jurassic Park in their filmography. But it's always a disappointment when a director I seriously like manages to craft a dud, kinda like when a parent realizes their kid has committed some kind of crime, y'know? You know they're better than this, how could this have happened? In the case of The Circle, it's director James Ponsoldt, the filmmaker behind The End Of The Tour and the particularly excellent 2013 drama The Spectacular Now, that stumbles here when he tackles the world of cyber-security and internet privacy.

Oh, what Mae (Emma Watson) wouldn't give to get out of her steadily paying cubicle job that just seems more mundane than anything else (we don't really get a glimpse into any of her skills set ever in the movie, so it's hard to even grasp if she's being wasted in this occupation). Her dream of ascending to a better form of employment comes when her friend, Annie (Karen Gillan), helps her score a job at The Circle, a huge technology company that's changing the world under the direction of its boss, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks). Mae gets absorbed into the companies culture very quickly and wouldn't you know it, there may be some darker elements to this seemingly sunny company....

The Circle gets started with a serviceable but unremarkable first act that dovetails into a second and third act that are comprised almost entirely of utter nonsense. Describing various events that set major plot points into motion (namely, a stolen kayak and a drone-induced automobile-related murder) would make me sound like a crazy person and absolutely none of them fit into the more somber and supposedly contemplative atmosphere The Circle is aiming for. This movie really wants to be some kind of rumination on technology in the vein of the works of people like Isaac Asimov but all of its ideas are just so (for lack of a better word) dumb, they don't gel into the serious tone of the film at all.

For a good example of how The Circle fails to come up with anything interesting to say in an aggravating fashion, take a gander at Eamon Bailey, an overly obvious Steve Jobs pastiche (I couldn't tell based on his facial hair and clothing choices) that utterly fails at being the kind of character the script by Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers (the latter of whom wrote the 2013 novel this movie is based on) wants him to be. It's obvious Bailey is supposed to be this endearing figure whose every word people are absorbed by, a fellow enigmatic and charming enough to have people chomping at the bit to hear about the next product his company is developing. But despite having a phenomenal actor like Tom Hanks in the role, The Circle utterly fails in its ambitions to turn Bailey into that specific type of character.

In his numerous extended speeches to his employees (the ones that are supposed to show why this guy and his company are so popular to both Mae and the viewer), the dialogue Hanks delivers wouldn't pass muster in a subpar parody of a TED Talk speech. He comes off as overly phony and trying-too-hard like he's some out-of-touch adult trying to be all hip with the High Schoolers he's forced to give a lecture too. By the time Bailey was propping his feet up on the table during an important meeting, I was yearning for them to give this character some deeper ideas or symbolism to him instead of letting Bailey simply be a mixture of Steve Jobs and Steve Buscemi saying "How do you do fellow kids?" on 30 Rock. Plus, the poorly executed role wastes Tom Hanks, which should count as a war crime.

That turgid approach to Bailey's character permeates the entirety of The Circle, which is crammed to the brim with overly obvious dialogue and even more packed to the gills with dim-witted approaches to the concept of technology consuming our lives. All of the new technological innovations that The Circle puts out, like a 24/7 webcam that Mae has to wear, don't feel like actual new-fangled gizmos that offer actual incentives and rewards for potential consumers while hiding potential problems regarding privacy, they just come off as solely creepy and weird in a hyper-stylized way that makes you wonder how oblivious Mae must be not to notice how shady the company she works for is, especially after John Boyega takes her aside to have a private conversation early on about the dangers of The Circle.

Oh Lord, poor John Boyega. This super talented guy is reduced to just hanging around in the background for much of the movie with a forlorn expression before he provides some help for the abruptly done climax. Boyega also gets saddled with some poor direction and editing in that aforementioned conversation about the dangers of The Circle with Watson that has him alternating between comfort and anger at the drop of a hat for no reason. At least he fares better than Ellar Coltrane, poor guy gets stuck with the most poorly done scene of the entire movie where he confronts Emma Watson at her place of work armed only with plenty of abysmally-written dialogue by his side.
Did I mention his subplot allows the movie to introduce the concept of cyber-bullying by showing a straight white guy as the ultimate target of online-based abuse? As if you couldn't tell already, The Circle has a poor grasp on how to handle very real issues facing the interwebs and technology and it has a similar amount of difficulty conjuring up decent direction or performances from its A-list cast. Oh James Ponsoldt, why??? You were the chosen one! It was said you would bring balance to The Force, not make something as poorly made as The Circle!