The Circle (2017)

The worst film I have ever seen, I would have preferred to spend an hour and 45 mins ironing

It had the futuristic abstraction elements to be a "Black Mirror" episode, though, not a very well written one.Expected it to be a decent movie, but it fell short from every aspect - characters, story, ...

Mae (Emma Watson) unexpectedly lands a job at The Circle - a social media company which seems to be an amalgam of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon etc. - but mostly Facebook (allegedly). She's carried away on a wave of optimism for the life-sharing potential of the software forgetting the importance of privacy.And it's privacy, and the way social media software can steal it from us, that's the theme of the movie. Some scenes are eerily prescient - particularly one involving voting and elections.Sadly, a strong theme and some accurate predictions don't make a movie. We need strong characters who we care about. But Mae's motivations are confused, changing and contradictory and ultimately she loses our sympathy.The other main character is the boss of the company. We could call him Jeff Zuckjob, but actually he's called Bailey and played by Tom Hanks. For such a character, a thin veneer of social largesse hides a deep obsession with what salable data can be collected, who would want to buy it, and how could they use it. What drives these people is power and ultimately money - if we're looking for Bailey's motivation: follow the money. But unfortunately the film just doesn't do that. We get no more than the vaguest of hints as to what really drives The Circle and what drives Bailey, so his character too ends up being unsatisfactory.In the end, the exposition of the theme gets in the way of the story.It's been suggested on here that a strong cast were sold on the importance of the theme before they read the screenplay. Emma, and particularly Tom with his age and experience, should really have fixed this before it got to the screen. But maybe that's not how Hollywood works these days.If you're looking to see political issues cleverly woven into a movie, try Pelican Brief, or Erin Brokovich. Oh. Actually, both with Julia Roberts. I wonder if that's significant.

I got the impression that the team behind it were a fan of Black Mirror, and planned a movie in the style of Charlie Brooker. The idea that technology in the near future can have devastating effects on people, but also make you wonder, what if.The production values are good, it's a fairly slick looking movie, performances are pretty good, Watson, Hanks and Gillen allbpretya good. It's somewhat forgettable, but it's certainly a film that makes you wonder if the way our society is going will lead to privacy being lost, and invasion getting out of hand.It's not a wow by any stretch of the imagination, but it's worth a look. 6/10