They're mostly plot functions with names. There's a Hanks-like decency to the way he looks at human beings.īut this story doesn't have many recognizable human beings in it. He thrives in a low-key mode, telling stories of ordinary people interacting in ordinary spaces "Off the Black," " Smashed" and especially " The Spectacular Now" were about as good as intimate character-driven indies could be, and " The End of the Tour" had its moments, too. A mad visionary stylist who paints with light and sound might've made a memorable film out of this story, but that's not the kind of director Ponsoldt is. And the meat-and-potatoes manner in which Ponsoldt has adapted and directed this material reveals the limits of his talent. The problem is, "The Circle" never finds a good way to escalate its paranoia in anything other than a tedious, obvious way. "The Circle" gets this and uses it to generate low-level paranoia in every scene, and amps it up whenever Eamon strides onstage to give one of his TED-talk styled addresses to the company or to unveil a groundbreaking new product (such as the tiny spherical cameras that Eamon distributes all over the world, giving the resultant Orwellian surveillance network a granola-crunching progressive label: SeeChange). "Transparency" and "integration" and other multi-syllable words get tossed around a lot by guys like Eamon, who are really interested in getting access to our data so they can monitor our lives, sell us new products, and resell our information to third parties. ![]() She'll wear cameras on herself and plant them all over her apartment and in other significant locations of her life and embrace the idea of "total transparency" hyped by her boss. Mae is handpicked by Eamon and his right-hand man, company co-founder Tom Stenton ( Patton Oswalt), to take part in an experiment to glorify a new tiny camera they've invented. You probably have a good idea of where this story is going even if you've never read Eggers' book or seen an anti-tech warning tale before. ![]() Emma Watson stars as Mae Holland, a young woman who gets a job at The Circle, a cult-like corporation based in the Bay Area that has a campus with man-made lakes and a sky filled with buzzing drones. James Ponsoldt's film based on Dave Eggers' same-titled 2013 book has a lot of good ideas and a few engrossing sequences, but it never quite finds a groove, or even a mode, and it ends in an abrupt, unsatisfying way. His performance in "The Circle" as Evil Tom Hanks is the best thing in the picture. The closest he's gotten to that sort of character was in "The Road to Perdition," where he played a mob hitman who was more of a morose antihero than a bad guy, and the " The Ladykillers," a slapstick comedy that cast him as an obnoxious, bumbling Satan with a Foghorn Leghorn accent. And yet Hanks has never played a straight-up bad guy who chills you to the bone whenever he shows up onscreen. You just know that if he ever used his considerable influence for evil rather than good, almost no one would resist him, and the handful that warned against him would not be believed. If you're curious to know more about the new faces on The Circle, read on.The notion that Tom Hanks, a patriotic emblem right up there with apple pie and the American flag, would be hired to put a smiley face on an American Hiroshima is scarier than a lot of current horror films. And like previous seasons, you can expect a *lot* of suspense and drama as the cast navigates their new relationships with one another. This season will include a whole lot of catfishing. The disqualified player will have the option to visit any cast member face-to-face for the first time to reveal their identity. The better the impression you make, the more likely you are to stay in the competition. The twist? Some players play as themselves, while others play as someone else. At the end of each week, everyone will rank the other players, which determines who stays and who gets the boot. ![]() While they can message each other, they won't see each other (aside from pre-selected photos) or hear each other's voices. The only way they can communicate with their fellow cast members is through a social media platform called The Circle. The same rules of the game still apply, but if you aren't already familiar with the show, let me give you a quick rundown.Īt the beginning of the season, contestants will arrive at a hotel, where they will live separately. The highly-anticipated Netflix reality show will feature nine newbies ready to make their best first impressions. After three seasons of catfishing, hashtagging, and virtual bonding, The Circle, is back for season 4 on May 4.
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