This is not as much of a review as in investigation of the failure of the film the Circle. While the commercial failure can be partly blamed on the bad timing of the release of the film and the misguided marketing campaign, we should not ignore the bad word of mouth as well. Despite excellent reviews and a lot of positive reactions from the fans, there where many fans and non-fans alike that where not impressed with the final film. I have tried to understand what exactly happened and made a few conclutions.
To brielf as possible explain the plot: 6 young witches have been chosen to save the world from demons. Said demons has sent out an assassin to kill the witches to prevent them from foiling their plan. The witches must discover and eliminate the assassin before he get them.
There is certainly a lot to like in the film. The casting of the six leads is on point, even of some look too old. Each one gives a stellar performance were I really have to nitpick to find something to complain about. This really comes down to how isolated lines are performed which I can assume is due to unclear editing/direction. Speaking of which, there are a lot of inspired cinematic solutions in the film. A stand out is an early introdutional montage of the main characters. At times there is spellbinding cinematography and the music by Benny Andersson is amazing. The needle drops are pretty neat as well and I've found my self listening a lot to the soundtrack. The regular sound is pretty good too, especially when you saw the film in the theatre.
But as much as I enjoy the acting of the young leads, I can not say anything nice about the adult actors. Ruth Vega Fernandez (who plays the Principal) is probably the worst offender. Every line she says is spoken with the same tone of voice and like the is reading lines off a board. This is only made worse by the younger (and more unestablished) actors give it their all. And for every inspired choice in the direction, there are several others that are just the opposite. Two central scenes where the plot is explained has the characters grouped together with some basic reverse shots. This becomes especially frustrating when even the book had more interesting staging of the characters: In the scene where Ida has her first vision, the book actually describes the leads standing around her in a circle, which would have made for a really nice visual. In another scene the Principal is supposed to to explain about the Demons, she is just sitting and talking for several minutes. We get no visual reference for what these demons look like, which makes them cinematically harmless. One might point out that Sauron was also an invisible villain, but both the books and the film adaptations actually does show him in various ways. And we also have his proxies in the form of various creepy henchmen like the Nazgul, Saruman and the orcs who makes his threat tangible. Since the demon's assassin is mostly seen as a brief vision in a hallway it does really make the threat seem remote.
The editing is also lacking. Several scenes could have been cut down to tighten the rather slow pace of the story and there are brief moments that could have been cut completely. That could not have saved the film from it's greatest flaw which is the script.
Now, I don't know how many people have pointed out that the large number of characters in the film, excluding the leads, and sprawling story would be better suited as a tv-series than a film. If there is something I can add to the mix is that I feel that the discussion if the Circle would make for a better tv-series than film is not a relevant question when it comes the the success of the film as an adaptation or not. What a tv-series has is time and time is not the issue of the film. It's how it's time is used. Already within the 10 first minutes of the film, we have several examples of how the film focuses on the wrong stuff. In the introduction montage, we spend much more time establishing the relationship between Vanessa and her boyfriend Willie than Rebecka and her boyfriend Gustaf, despite Gustaf having a way larger impact on the plot than Willie. Willie has roughly three times the total screen time of Gustaf, actually. The film just has so many pointless scenes wasting time that could have been spent elsewhere. Several scenes happens in a different order than they do in the book in a way where they lack the narrative impact they have in the book. One glaring example is a key scene where Minoo is kissed by a boy in the streets. In the books Minoo believes said boy has killed one of her friends. However, in the film this scene happens before Minoo is given reason to believe he is the killer. And there is the issue of having six leads.
I for one does not think this could not have worked, but the screenwriters had to be more clever about the way they set up the characters. In reality, there are actually four leads, with two of the chosen witches only being fleshed out in the second novel in the series. Given, not all of the witches survive I would have suggested on focusing on three of the witches in the the first half, treating Minoo as a peripheral character like Linnea and Ida, until she has to step into a leader position later. Given how much Minoo get's to do over all in the film, which is a problem in of itself. We hear a lot about how the witches has to co-operate, but most of the leg work is done by Minoo. This even starts to come at the cost of the characters, including Minoo. Despite being shown as a socially awkward person without friends, Minoo is the one who takes charge right away and attempts to bring the witches together. Would it not be better to have another witch do it at first? Perhaps one of the ones that die, so he death motivates Minoo into action?
Given how half of the witches have almost nothing to do that is important to the plot so the writers start to hand over plot points from other characters despite it not making sense. Given that Anna-Karin has no impact on the central conflict due to adaptational changes, she is given Linnea's resolution of being captured by the assassin. In the book Linnea is captured due to impulsively deciding to take on the assassin herself instead of co-operating, something that is well established in the book. In the film Anna-Karin is captured under circumstances so unclear I had to watch the film three times before I understood what was happening. This is coming from someone who figured out the unilinear structure of Arrival 40 minutes before the actual reveal. It actually turns out the assassin transforms into Minoo and tricks Anna-Karin. Given how Anna-Karin and Minoo does not really have any meaningful dialogue with each until after said kidnapping, it does not really have the same pay off as the book.
Speaking of the finale, the way the witches discover the identity of the assassin in the film is ridiculous. In the book Minoo uses her reasoning and deductive skills to make an educated guess who it is and tricks the assassin into revealing himself. In the film? Minoo recognizes how the assassin strokes her ear. Given Minoo does not seem to have much experience in such matters (despite being played by the winsome Irma von Platen) I can't really buy she would even think it was off.
The Circle is a novel that requires a sharp script to work as an adaptation and capture the magic of the book. Unfortunately, the film is instead undisciplined, unfocused and most of all frustrating. They were on the verge of greatness, they were this close but failed were story telling matters the most: The very telling of the story.
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