Emma Watson, John Boyega, Karen Gillen Star In Your Social Media, Black Mirror-esque Nightmare
The Circle had me at Emma Watson, John Boyega, and Karen Gillan. I don’t care if this film will fuel my already paranoid worries about the future of social media and technology at large.
USA Today had the exclusive trailer reveal of the film based on Dave Eggers’ novel. It’s directed by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) and also stars Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Patton Oswalt, and Ellen Wong.
“When Dave’s book came out, it felt like speculative fiction, the future around the corner. But shooting it, we thought of it as an alternaverse: slightly skewed, but essentially our world,” Ponsoldt told them. “It’s a fun ride. We live through Mae. She is us. You will walk out of the theater and have a serious look at yourself and how you’re living your life.” So yeah, a lot like how you feeling watching Netflix’s Black Mirror probably.
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
In theaters April 28, 2017.