Comments on: My Review and Explanation of the Movie Circle https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/ Movies, Books & TV for people who like to think.. Fri, 26 Sep 2025 18:58:58 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Paul https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1159311 Tue, 22 Mar 2022 02:31:19 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1159311 I think it’s worth noting that most of the other people left with Eric at the aqueduct are women (specifically pregnant women) and children. So maybe it’s actually an optimistic view of human nature in spite of the experience we got to witness.

]]> By: Claire https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1112389 Tue, 30 Mar 2021 17:39:32 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1112389 I love the fact that this thread started years ago and is still going!
There are lots of brilliant views and theories on here, which shows just how thought-provoking a story it is.
I look at it a lot more simply though. Not because I’m not intellectually capable, but, perhaps because of my changed views on humanity and any purpose of life after surviving PTSD.
The game is clearly about survival and I look at it in two ways. And that’s from outside the circle.
What if the aliens – clearly a much more advanced species – have come to save earth. Maybe even for their own survival – they might rely on our planet for something and are acting now before we selfishly destroy it. By the old adage, ‘be cruel to be kind’, they leave it to us to decide who goes, so that the goal is reached – to lower the population of the planet. Or, in a similar vein, perhaps it’s some kind of Darwinism, to hurry up the theory of the survival of the fittest, also to save the planet. Either way, something bigger than us selfish humans.
Or, even more simply, they are just a cruel alien race, watching humans kill each other for fun. Just like the Romans did way back when
X

]]> By: Prasanna https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1071628 Mon, 24 Aug 2020 20:21:48 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1071628 I really loved this movie and your article as well… the epilogue was kind of an ending I probably needed but I sorta wish wasn’t there.. Anyways, I just wanted to share this feeling I had towards the ending. When it was just Eric, the little girl and the pregnant lady at the end, I felt that the last one standing would have a life-long struggle of processing what happened and living to own their choices… But I love what Eric did as part of his last move (more so as he thought was his last move) for the sheer fact that it was the most clever move… However, there was this moment when I kinda wished that the apparatus would cease to function at that point… Imagine, if that had happened, the only way out for Eric would be to volunteer himself to die by stepping out of the circle or stay imprisoned within the circle for the remainder of his life, as long as he chooses to fight it.. But I guess that would have been cliche… I also like the fact that all of this wasn’t as pointless… The last one standing did actually get a chance to come out of it… What are the chances that this exercise continues to the point where there are say 10 pregnant women, 10 children, 10 schemers like Eric, and 20 of other random people… and what are the odds that it the end of it all, it’s just pregnant women against children?

]]> By: Taylor Holmes https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1055973 Sat, 20 Jun 2020 15:18:40 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1055973 In reply to Tristany.

This is a such an enlightened comment. Literally have zero response here since I haven’t seen the film in a while. But I would love to rewatch it simply because of this comment in order to watch for these details.

So kudos to you. It’s almost as if I should redact/rewrite sections of my post as a result… nah. That’s hard. Hahaha. Great comment.

]]> By: Tristany https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1055816 Fri, 19 Jun 2020 23:53:09 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1055816 1 + 1 = 1

The pregnant ladies give all the clues you need to win this game. Without killing the baby or the girl.

Clue 1: The aliens allow more than one lifeform per circle;

Clue 2: The baby transferred from one circle to the one behind it without dying.
My guess is you die by touching the black floor or being in two circles at the same time.

Clue 3: The pregnant ladies at the end aren’t distressed, so I assume their babies are still alive. The aliens allow more than one lifeform to leave as long as they are in the same circle.

Final clue: One of the ladies at the end is holding a child that doesn’t appear her own. This suggests they survived a circle together.

Other tactics: Towards the middle of the purging I would take my clothes off and throw them at the laser eye. It probably wouldn’t work, but it would earn the respect of the group. And the men would be more distracted the rest of the game :)

Other observations: there could be more than 1 circle per spaceship. Maybe not everyone makes it to the circle, if we believe Eric’s account of “tonnes of bodies”. I can see the aliens only selecting a diverse few for each circle. Some form of culling must have been part of their purpose. Did you see anyone obviously unfit, as in morbidly obese or too frail to stand?

My alternate ending: Eric talks with the survivors and realizes he didn’t beat the game. He walks towards the aqueduct and throws himself off… waking up in the tunnel again with his hand shining. The aliens don’t give their prized guinea-pig permission to die.

]]> By: Uthi https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1045181 Thu, 30 Apr 2020 22:06:42 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1045181 I think that the meaning in this movie is not the end and not the beginning. The moment people become aware of voting and choice, they become like their torturers. Regardless of the criteria they use, they are as guilty of murder as executioners. On the other hand, for none of them to be a murderer, they would all have to leave the circle in an instant. Because people are not able to quit the game, it begins to roll. And here comes the philosophical discourse, which is “more” moral, not voting on anyone, or assuming responsibility for the decision? One existentialist said that man is never free because he has to make a choice. If the circle is a metaphor for our world, then the participants – aware and voting – are people making judgments and trying to poison others with their judgments – then maybe we are dealing here with the metaphor of death as public stigma, a wave of hate and lack of social acceptance. If this is the case, then notice that the hatred is due to many reasons and the voice of the herd counts – does a pregnant woman have the right to live? Is it because she is pregnant that she should die? Who should be favored and who should be stigmatized? It turns out that in the realities of such a world only the one who is resistant to persecution, who can defend himself and cover himself with beautiful words and ideals – before evaluation experiences. So many people could not see the truth in this man, and how often did the judges, our idols and others in whom we follow the footsteps, evaluated the behavior of other people and trusted them, convinced that they had a clear conscience? For me it is a film with this sense: you cannot assess the value of another person’s life because you are not capable of it yourself, each of us makes mistakes and does not always make good choices. So if we find ourselves in a situation like our survivor who risks, cheats, lies, but at least knows to himself that he is doing it to survive, could we live with it later? Are we convinced of the priority of our lives over others? And what happens if we stigmatize a man?

]]> By: Tania https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1035860 Sun, 15 Mar 2020 23:43:10 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1035860 Hey there!

I tried writing something and it didn’t submit properly haha!

But what I really came to say is that I appreciate all the theories and explanations behind this awesome thought-provoking movie! I really wanted to believe that there was a mastermind in the group running the show, which is what I thought Eric was! This touches on some serious topics of how our society contributes to this on a daily basis. Even if we’re not purposely killing each other, we are shaming and bashing people for not agreeing with their opinions and not seeing them as equals.

If you send me an email I’d be more than happy to chat more about this, but I’m not typing out another essay again haha!

Cheers,

]]> By: Tania https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1035858 Sun, 15 Mar 2020 23:36:21 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1035858 I’m coming into this way late here, seeing as I just watched this movie for the first time but I was so fascinated that I had to give my two cents.

This movie for all its worth, really puts you on edge. The most interesting parts of the movie are the dilemmas you face while watching it. Do you agree with the man who thinks they are being racist towards him, or do you think he’s just trying to save his own ass? It’s hard to even picture yourself in this scenario because it’s a bit extreme, but in a way it kind of resembles life itself. We do hurt people like the ones who die in the film. There are homophobic, racist, egotistic, assholes out there- that’s life. But that also doesn’t mean they aren’t human and they don’t deserve anyone’s pettiness.

I wondered a couple things while I was watching this movie and the first one was, “are they actually dying?” I thought to myself- maybe this is how they showcase the people who are willing to sacrifice others lives in replace of their own. Not one single person sacrificed themselves to put a finger on the person who got shocked to see if they are still alive, or just knocked unconscious – we still really don’t know that.

I also wondered if someone in the game was actually running the entire game (I’ve clearly seen too many Saw series for this thought) and it really had me thinking. How interesting would that have been? The more I witness how fast Eric was to convince people of who to vote for, the more I thought he was the mastermind. That could have made the “experiment” a whole lot more interesting!

Another thing that crossed my mind, was how we’re these people perfectly picked. By perfectly, I mean they had all different races, ages, ethnicities, and diversity to really make it interesting. I do understand that it is a movie, but they didn’t have a lot of similarities other than the people who knew one another. How perfect to plot those people together? That just made it a little less authentic as it really could have been.

A couple things really stood out to me in the film though, one being the fact that they all never thought of every possible outcome other than how they are connected and who should survive. Why didn’t they all try to take off their clothing and drape it over “God’s eye” as I would call it? To me it really was survival of the fittest. I don’t mean that in a literal sense, but who can conquer their way to the end.

Another thing that really stood out to me in the film was the ending. Of course they need to leave you on a cliffhanger to wonder how and why this all happened! To me, there was a couple different options. Either he won, and was forced to walk away knowing he was the last man standing and had to live with that. Or, he is now sentenced to play again with new people. I think the most realistic approach to the ending was a moral lesson, that he would have to live with his conscious of assisting in killing forty-nine people and live in “hell” without his loved ones.

This really could have been a religious take on the movie to showcase right from wrong and who will go to extraordinary lengths to save themselves. Personally, nobody really can say what they would do because when it comes to survival- people would do anything to live.

I really enjoyed reading your blog, and it definitely gave me some extra insight on this oddly fascinating and thrilling movie!

Cheers!

]]> By: Liz https://taylorholmes.com/2016/08/19/my-review-and-explanation-of-the-movie-circle/#comment-1022453 Thu, 28 Nov 2019 09:25:09 +0000 http://taylorholmes.com/?p=11917#comment-1022453 People will die for what they believe is righteous, or moral, and it is when we value life, above all else, that we forfeit our values and think only of ourselves. The fear of death can prevent us from making the best choice. For example, I often wonder if living benevolently will bring my life to an end; I fear living a life of service because if I gain too much favor I might be sentenced to death. On the other hand, if I choose not to participate, maybe I can stick around long enough to witness his plan unfold. The first word that comes to mind when I am witness to a beautiful moment, is WOW! The last word that comes to mind when I am witness to a horrific moment, is WOW! I live for these moments, and choose to give birth so that another can also bear witness to his glory. We all want to make it to the end, but only a select few wrestle with God, and live.

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