“The Circle is the chaos of the web made elegant!”
The Circle is a book adaptation of Dave Egger’s novel which came out in 2013 under the same name as its motion picture. The movie came out in 2017, directed by James Ponsoldt, and is put under the category of techno-thriller. The Circle is a hard hitting reality which will trigger a few questions in your mind by the time it ends. Let’s just say not all science fiction that might give you goose bumps or creeps at the least, is supposed to have an external species invade humanity. This movie is not about some science experiment gone wrong or a virus creating nuisance in the world. It depicts the reality of the bug present among us which has its upside but it might also become the reason to take us down- Internet and Social Media. “Internet’s invasion” into humanity is not fiction. It’s the reality we are living. Internet is a beacon of light for humanity…Agreed. But let’s just explore the dark side and the prospects of how much darker it can get. Thoughts will circle, once you’re done watching the circle.
As I have made it pretty clear in the title, I am not reviewing the movie. So I will not go into the details where the storyline might have gone slightly off, or discuss the directorial, cinematographic aspects etc of the Circle. We have plenty of debates, articles, discussions and interviews on that, you may go ahead and Google. I simply wish to bring to light the fear that triggered in me when I was done watching the movie. How easily our privacy is slipping right through our hands, thanks to social media and we don’t even seem bothered by it. Instead, we ourselves are happily putting our lives in front of the world and boy is it messing up with our minds!
A brief account of the story to put my point across:
The movie begins with a scene where Mae Holland (Emma Watson) is out alone kayaking. She has a lousy job until her friend Annie (Karen Gillian) helps her land an interview in one of the most renowned Tech Company “The Circle”. She obviously cracks the interview and gets a job in the customer experience team, which according to many ‘circlers’ at higher positions now, was where they had started out from. She is advised to become “socially active” and share her life so that she gets to be a better connected member of the Circle society. No pressure, but keep updating your social media Profiles continuously. It’s all to maintain the fun and buzz of the place. (And yes, who says you should keep your personal and professional life separate? Go ahead, merge it up, and let the world know you better. Let strangers be only a click away from you.) Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) who is the CEO of The Circle introduces “See Change”, an extremely small and portable camera which will see everything and would easily go unnoticed in its surroundings as well. Soon enough events lead to Mae delivering herself voluntarily to go “completely transparent” by wearing the camera 24/7 and going live in front of the whole world. It is to bring a change in the society. It’s to prove “Knowledge is good. But knowing everything, is better” (Like seriously?! Privacy knock, knock!), Mae gets attention that she never expected and eventually she starts liking it. However, a decent life is disrupted and it affects not only Mae but her family as well as friends. Alison too realizes soon enough that being caught up with the Circle, she was losing on herself. She was losing her mind. (Quite the corporate world scenario nowadays.) But as she digs deeper, Mae realizes everything might not be as pretty as is visible from her rose tinted glasses. Eamon and his fellow COO Tom (Palton Oswalt) might be hiding their own set of secrets while unraveling everyone else’s. A series of unfortunate events lead Mae to make a decision that will change the life of all the circlers as well as hers. Avoiding major spoilers and sticking to the points of discussion I would like to mention the scene at the very end where Mae is once again kayaking but this time she isn’t alone. Anyone and everyone can see her as a drone is hovering over her. (Okay, They went a little too far there, but reality check, aren’t we all easily available to go live at a single tap on the mobile screens, we all own?) Ironically, Mae seems completely at peace with it.
Not all secrets are lies. Some secrets are kept for the greater good. PRIVACY is important. But we all are aware, privacy is being breached. Voluntarily and involuntarily today. How many Terms or Conditions do we read before we hit the “I agree” button. Also, how does it matter even if we do? If the conditions aren’t agreed to, you can’t get thorough access. Like it or not, it’s not exactly a choice you have. Of course there are privacy settings then. But go ahead and go through all of them. How satisfied do you actually feel inspite of making those petty privacy changes? Apart from that. What about the voluntary display of information? Every detail from our everyday lives starting from what we eat to where we go and how we feel, it’s all out there. It’s almost a personal journal out there, for everyone to read. Just being “Socially Active”? Well, let’s not even get started on that one.
“Knowledge is good but knowing everything is better.”
Really? Knowledge is good. But overload of information leads to chaos and disaster. Consequences of information travelling at an inexorable speed has lead to people killing innocents because some fake news convicted them of a crime they didn’t commit. All sorts of information are flooding around. Right, Wrong, over exaggerated, doctored; everything. All of it is simply a tap away. Yet, for National and international security reasons, personal privacy reasons and to keep the sanity of the society intact, a lot of information has to be withheld from public. Privacy is a human right. But let’s be honest, it is as much threatened as demanded, in this generation of social media and Internet.
The movie highlights subversion of democracy. Though the depiction might be perceived as slightly absurd by some viewers but then, let’s not forget its fiction. Yet, you can’t help but be reminded of the news of elections being rigged and voting being heavily influenced by social media. Not all that fictional, is it now?
Another agenda of The Circle seems to be Global takeover. Well, the widespread involvement of social media and the major role it has got to play in everybody’s life; global takeover is a reality we are already living.
“ What makes The Circle so valuable is not only that it’s showing us a ghastly possible path that the world may take, but that it articulates the mentality that could create and sustain it.” – Mike LaSalle, The San Francisco Chronicle
“The fascist digital future the movie imagines is darkly intriguing to contemplate because one’s main thought about it is, how much of that future is already here.” -Owen Glieberman, Variety
Social Media and Internet is not something we can turn our backs on. It is here and it will only grow. But it’s our choice to draw a line between how much do we want it to get involved with us and how much we involve ourselves with it. Watch the Circle and you once you’re done, you will draw your lines. Even if you don’t, at least you will question yourself before vomiting everything on the screen. The thought in itself counts. A thought is the seed of change and The Circle is thought provoking enough.