Circle is a Netflix exclusive, premiering on October 16
At the heart of Reality Television is a desire to examine our world in a microcosm. The Real World was initially an experiment to see how people from different backgrounds would interact when forced to live together in close proximity. The artificial concept revealed much about how privilege and sheltered experiences form our worldview and our sense of self. The Real World would beget Road Rules, adding a game show conceit to the different background experiment. That formula would lead to a litany of variations – Big Brother, Survivor, The Amazing Race – addressing the idea that social dominance and a street-wise mentality were just as important to survival as physical strength or book smarts.
Netflix’s new low-budget Circle strips that concept to its barest essentials. 50 unconscious strangers wake up on individual red circles in a black room with triangles on the floor and a mysterious dome at the center. Through some quick thinking, and a few leaps of logic, the strangers figure out they’re in a killer experiment where every 2 minutes somebody must die. There are two ways to die: step off your circle, or be voted off. Voted off? Each of the strangers have been fit with a piece of hardware that allows them to vote for the next to die. Every two minutes, the loser with the most votes gets zapped by the dome and dragged off stage by that piece of hardware.
Much like reality game shows, this concept is merely a vehicle to hang a sociological drama examining American society at large. The strangers, all taken from America, are intended to represent a cross section of America. At the heart of Circle is the question, “What matters to society?” Youth? Money? Sexuality? Race? Religion? Politics? Every two minutes, the weakest link of society is voted off the show by the other contestants, but who should be the next to go?
Using a simple one-set conceit, Circle is unusually dependent on its screenplay to provide tension and thrills. The continuously ticking clock does wonders for the pacing, which is one death after another. But, even that won’t hold up if the segments between the deaths are tired. Luckily, Circle‘s sociopolitical discussions only occasionally delve into the over or underwritten. The actors plow through dialogue paced for brevity and tension with gusto, providing real illustrations of conversations we see played out on news networks and internet comment sections. Given this new face-to-face context, the conversations we see casually thrown around take on a new weight with people’s lives on the line.
The set up of the board, with each participant in individual circles, only serves to remind us how fractured our society has become. To extend Circle‘s metaphor, dividing a random cross section of America up into individual people reminds us about how we’re all divided into individual demographics by our overlords. How am I different from my neighbor? Am I male or female? Gay or straight? Young, middle-aged, or elderly? White or black? Married or single? Racist? Poor? Rich? For emphasis, the characters in Circle are given titles like “The Rich Man,” “The Lesbian,” or “The Lawyer.” No names allowed in the world of statistics.
Under all this weight, Circle could have been a dire dirge of political finger wagging. Instead, writer-directors Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione constantly change up the tone of the conversations. Alternately shocking, intense, horrifying, bleak, and hilarious, Circle tries to stay a half-step ahead of the audience’s expectations at all times. That isn’t to say that Hann and Miscione are neutral bystanders. In more than a handful of instances, their blind ballot conceit allows them to pass their own judgement on people which may or may not be as cut and dry as it seems.
Like the one-set puzzle-box Cube, Hann and Miscione maximized their resources to create a polished film on a low-budget. The concept and the script pull the weight that budget normally can mask. Marked by solid editing, decent acting, and only a few dips into groan-inducing dialogue, Circle is a blisteringly nasty and darkly hilarious romp that may reorient your view of political discourse.
ed’s note (10/16/2015): Originally, this was viewed on a DLP at SIFF Uptown where the image looked fine. On rewatching the Netflix stream, the vast majority of the film has a weird yellow tint on it that was not noticed in the theater. In addition to the temperature, the shadows seem overly heightened and the contrast is thrown way off. This change in color seems to be intentional, which is a minor detriment to the film. I’m hoping this is eventually fixed.