Hey guys,
We're the filmmaking team behind CIRCLE and figured we'd start a thread to chat with people who had seen the movie and wanted to share theories or ask questions. Assume this will have spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film yet, read at your own risk!
Thanks,
Team Circle
What was the budget of the film?
shareI enjoyed the movie, as I do love this type of movies if done good.
Kept me on my edge, kept me guessing, of whats going on here. Was surprised of the peeps that made it into the final 4, also nice surprise that the bad guy won.
Keep up the good work of doing suspensfull movies, as they are not easy especially with people have seen 1000x of movies nowdays and the standards are very high
Did the accused pornstar really do porn?
And did she suck off the producer because she made it pretty far into the film.
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Don't be a hater, dear. www.youtube.com/user/dinoatcharterdotnet
Hi Guys, I saw Circle on netflix just now. I've seen the whole movie, I had to fast backwards a lot of times... The truth is, I don't know if it's just me, but even after going back a lot I still don't really understand what's happening most of the time. I love the concept of the movie but what happens doesn't really make sense to me. For example, by the end there are like two groups trying to get people on their side. I still don't know who the two groups are and what they were argueing about exactly. I'm sur a lot of it is just me, maybe it's made in a way that is difficult for me to comprehend. But I'm not a dumb person and I really don't get it. If you ever make a sequel or a similar concept I just wanted you to know that.
shareYou were just an outsider looking in.
Imagine how most of them still alive in the circle towards the end of the movie felt about what was going on.
Of all the people remaining at the end, I don't think most of them even had a clue what "side" they were on. Hell, the ONE guy you thought you could count on to save either the child or the pregnant mother ended up being a sociopathic monster. By the end, most of the personalities left were Betas, with a few Alphas vying for position.
I think the best example of that is when during some intense between-killing dialogue one of the guys just says "vote for the black guy!" at the last second and the last black alpha is gone. My guess is that even though there were "sides" in question at that point, 80% or more of the people left instinctively voted for "the black guy" regardless of what side they believed him or even themselves to be on. It wasn't even about racism or even implied or even instinctual racism. I just believe that more than 90% of us thrive on following directions and less than 10% of us thrive on giving them. 3-seconds-to-death there probably would have been enough people to vote for the kid that early in the movie if he said "vote for the kid!", but that would kill the ending of the movie.
Don't feel bad if you watch this movie a few times and still don't "get" it.
Chances are we'll never be put in a position like that, so it's okay to be more like one of the 40 or so people who died with less of a clue of what was going on than you or I did.
I don't agree: it's not okay. Sure, if this was a real event being filmed I certainly wouldn't be complaining about not getting the argument. However, what was the point of this argument if the viewer doesn't understand the argument? Creating tension like this works in real life but it doesn't work in a movie. Maybe it could work if you have really great actors but this wasn't the case.
The whole "vote for the black guy" thing was pretty clear to me. It was only seconds before the next kill and one guy thought it would be easiest to vote for the most recognizable dude there. That was actually a very good scene.
Another thing that I don't get is the ending where the guy won. Up until this point when there was a tie, then there would still be some time for the other people to decide who dies. If someone sacrificed himself before the 2 minutes then this was okay two and it counted as a kill. At the end the little girl stepped off and the pregnant woman got a vote at the same time. Because the little girl stepped off this would mean that the pregnant woman didn't have to die and yet in this instance, she did. When the guy decided to manipulate them, he couldn't have known this as it never happened before.
Also, for him to manipulate the little girl by both committing suicide: both the little girl and the pregnant woman had to be naïve enough to believe him. It would have made a lot more sense to let them vote for each other so they end up in a tie and then both die. Yet we're supposed to believe nobody questioned his ridiculous decision.
I suppose the biggest problem is that Circle fails to explain the rules of the game to the viewer, even by the time the final comes. How am I supposed to get sucked up in the tension of the conversation when I'm still figuring out the rules of the game?
Again, it's not okay as this is a movie. I don't know if you play a lot of boardgames like I do but when I play a boardgame and it turns out I don't understand the rules properly, it really sucks.
Whether or not you think it's "OKAY" is moot... lol... WTF man...
You're entire life is flipped upside down and you wake up in a dark room with 50 other idiots, people die by a "random" bolt of lightning every 2 minutes, and you think you're still playing Chutes and Ladders????
Honestly, If I were in that room of 50 people with you, I would hope you still didn't get the rules in the top 10, 100 minutes later.... All the more easily to manipulate you with, "my pretty.... and your little dog too..."
I don't know "WHY?", but it's obvious the Aliens only wanted innocent children and the most conniving and backstabbing people Humanity has to offer in the end. I don't see any other winners in other Circles.
If you can look past all of your own hubris and *beep* and look at it that way, you might see the elegant beauty of the movie.
What would have made you happy with it? Some sacchrine rich, diabetic Disney happy ending????
That EVIL *beep* won. And best yet, he was put back on the streets looking up at tons of "motherships" wondering what was next.
Was he going to be put in a new Circle with 50 people JUST AS EVIL AS HIM?
Excellent response to that moron.
He clearly wasn't paying attention to the movie in the slightest.
The two groups of people were representative of the 'we want to SAVE the child and pregnant mother" and the "we want to KILL the same two" groups.
The only issue I had with the 'Kill' group, is how they would've decided the last person standing, but it didn't come to that, so oh well.
Also if the moron had chosen to READ the WHOLE thread, he would've seen that the creators of the movie explained that you don't always know the rules of every thing you're doing in real life, so why would this be any different. Did he assume that the aliens would sit all 6 billion of us down, and speak to us in our native language...smfh.
I loved this movie and its a shame it didn't get a wider release, my feelings on it are that it was a survival of the fittest game.
I would have liked the lighting tweaked up a bit as it was a little dark, but all in all a quality piece of work and very well paced cleaver movie
At 1:22:43, when they see the ships in the background, a man enters a house. This was deliberate?
shareAs a psychologist, I wonder if you (as the filmmakers) considered that individuals tend to have a flight/flight tendency when faced with high risk situations. This means it is likely that instead of debating gay/immigrant/ethnicity issues, we would more likely see people crying, begging, screaming, angry, running, panicking or praying. While the movie does portray this initially, it seems that most people very quickly work out some logical 'game rules' and then start calmly and almost manipulatively moving forward into debates and conversations.
For example, take the HR woman - bragging about her education and rambling about her cats etc. She is facing almost imminent death and yet has the presence to run off a spiel that was trivial under the circumstances. Very odd behaviour indeed.
At other points in the movie, people are conversing while someone nearby drops dead, and they actually pick up their conversation where it left off - seemingly without missing a beat. Granted these are surreal circumstances, but these people have been in a room for 10 minutes or less and just a short while ago they were happily driving to the grocery store or to visit friends etc. It is unrealistic to suggest that in this short time frame, they have somehow transformed into callous sociopaths.
While people cannot maintain high levels of arousal for sustained periods of time, they are unlikely to 'forget' what is at stake and in life/death scenarios, it seems very likely that people would start debating value systems.
Considering this movie depicted an American circle, it crossed my mind that perhaps it is a cultural thing: maybe folks from the US are just silly enough to think that now is a good time to debate illegal immigration. But studies suggest that 'heroes' are likely to emerge from American groups facing life-death scenarios. And I do not mean 'suicide-happy folk'. More like someone making a run for the door or to see where those dead bodies were being dragged off to (i.e., is there a way out or can we break the machine).
The movie bothered me with its inane conversations and the debates were not even interesting: they were largely ignorant in content and seemed to be a transparent attempt by the directors to 'air racist/dogmatic views'. It reminded me a cheap talk show designed to cover controversial issues, but with few intelligent views/facts included.
I need to state a fundamental paradox with your intent for this film. You state it was the humans who ultimately make all decisions who live within the confines of the game. The game was able to sense 2 lives in the pregnant woman, as evidenced by how you chose to end the film. You also show other pregnant women who were winners in their game. How could that ever be possible? She would have to vote against the unborn child, yet they are clearly still pregnant. And since a pregnant woman has 2 lives, how is it that she doesn't get double votes, one for her and one for the baby? By insinuating the fetus is still alive after the mother is dead, you opened up a can of worms that can't be answered by this movie as you choose to tell it. You're ending was the downfall to the film.
shareFFS, learn how to read, all of your 'issues' are dealt with by previous responses from the creators of the movie.
Short version: unborn fetus isn't recognized as a player until IT lands in a circle of its own, the game board ONLY SENSES LIFE, it doesn't differentiate WHAT it is.
ALSO stated was that the aliens probably didn't include anyone very young in the other circles because they would've lacked the ability to reason/vote with any meaning.
Circleprime, I actually enjoyed the movie, a bit low budget in feeling, but that's not a mark against you at at all, you work with what you got right.
Sort of an observation I made was that the longhair 'surfer/hippie' guy, was possibly there to represent Jesus? He seemed to want to speak to the good in everyone.
Was that intended or am I just reading too much into his long hair and beard?
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