This movie came into my life by chance. It always happens doesn’t it? You stumble upon a movie on Netflix you never would’ve watched and it either turns out to be great or horrifically bad.

Well this was one of the good ones.

Circle is about aliens, but not really. Basically aliens have come to Earth and they are taking a selection of people into rooms and placing them on circles. If a person steps outside this circle they die. Using their hands each person decides who dies next and it keeps going until there is only one person left. Not much happens in this movie but the psychological side of it all is very interesting. Especially as in each room (from what we can tell) they include one pregnant woman and a child.

Of course each person has different ways of deciding who should die, from the younger generation calling out the elderly as they will die first, to deciding a man who can’t speak english should die because he contributes nothing to the group. It’s utterly fascinating and everytime the counter begins to count down to another killing you immediately feel a sense of dread.

In the end one person is left standing and they return to Earth to see around them mainly kids and pregnant women. We can assume as the audience that these are the other survivors, so did the group we watch make the right decision or was it all a selfish game?

The most fascinating part about this movie is the psychology. How people play games to try and win and make choices based around what others have been saying. One man made it to the final four simply because he stayed out of everything, never said a word and people just didn’t notice he was there. Another pair said they were husband and wife to pretend as if they were more worthy of living and others formed alliances and chose tactically who would die next. It’s so interesting to watch and wonder what you would do in that situation. How would you survive when you have less going for you then a pregnant woman or a child?

But, another point I love about this movie, was that we never know why the aliens are doing this or for what reason which means the ending is very open-ended and we can speculate our own ideas. Even though the first person who dies we see blood coming from her nose and eyes I generally believe that each time someone is ‘killed off’ they really go to another room full of new players and they have to keep going until they win. The aliens are seeing who is worthy of living and who has the best brain to work out their opponents and use their strengths and the others’ weaknesses against them.

Or another ending which I feel would’ve been better than the one we were given was if the one person won, it’s all happy smiles great I get to live, and then they wake up in a new room, with new people and it just continues. A never ending cycle until there’s only one person left. The true victor of Earth.

I would definitely watch Circle again as it is such an interesting movie and I think could easily spark up a discussion between viewers. It keeps you engaged from start to finish and honestly, by the end, I didn’t want it to end!

What did you think of Circle?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding