In the eighteenth century, English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a prison called the Panopticon. Designed in a circular structure with a single inspection tower at the center, the prison’s guards sat in the tower, watching the inmates in the inner perimeter of the circle that was lined with cells. Bentham’s belief was that people—in this case, inmates—behave better when observed, and due to a clever masking of the guard tower, the inmates of a Panopticon never know when they’re being watched. As a result, Bentham theorized, the prison inmates would be well behaved. Although Bentham designs were never put into practice, not exactly, the same basic principle is the driving force of The Circle, although in place of a prison, social media remains the ever-watchful eye observing your every move. Dave Eggers adapts his own novel alongside co-writer and director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, The End Of The Tour), delivering a film that functions like a world-upside-down episode of Black Mirror, except less edgy. It involves a Google-like company called The Circle, whose ubiquitous “TrueYou” sign-on gets users access to a digital world of connectivity. Everything in The Circle is about sharing and building both digital and real communities—and […]
The post The Circle appeared first on Deep Focus Review.