The Circle: Tom Hanks, Emma Watson star in a film about constant mass surveillance

Imagine a world where everything you do is tracked online. Where privacy doesn’t exist. Where corporations have the government’s blessing to extract whatever information they want about you.

Welcome to that world in The Circle, a new drama starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, which is starting to look a lot less like a thriller and more like a real life scenario with the element of constant surveillance by the government becoming a reality.

The film, directed by James Ponsoldt, and based on a novel and screenplay by Dave Eggers, is about the role of technology in our lives as we trade convenience for surveillance.

“This is not a dystopian future that’s set in, you know, 2050 or something,” Emma Watson told Entertainment Weekly in an interview, “This could basically be tomorrow. This is kind of an uncomfortably close film about where, if we aren’t careful, we could very easily go. Technology is advancing us and giving us so much and empowering us in so many amazing ways, but it’s also handing over potentially huge amounts of information. And information is power. Even more than money.”

The film follows Watson’s character Mae, who is hired to work for an organisation called ‘The Circle,’ the world’s largest and most powerful tech and social media company.

As she rises through the ranks, she is encouraged by the company’s founder, Eamon Bailey (Hanks), to engage in a groundbreaking experiment that pushes the boundaries of privacy, ethics and ultimately her personal freedom.

Sci-fi thriller The Circle, starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, will release in India on May 19.

(With inputs from agencies)