60
The Circle is an undiscovered gem that constantly delights with its unshowy transference of an inherited blood debt that we finally are 'beginning' to honour.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
This is a fascinating and often tumultuous story, which Haupt chronicles through a mixture of interviews with the real Ostertag and Rapp (now married, they appear as a pair) alongside dramatized vignettes that, as the film wears on, feel like annoying interruptions.
75
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
The film refuses to tease us with suspense, overwhelm us with sentimentality, or defy us with nuance.
80
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
A richly absorbing historical docudrama.
75
Haupt’s film moves along agreeably enough for a while, and the intercutting between the film’s real-life subjects, now at an advanced age, and their dramatized adventures almost 60 years ago, convincingly creates a rooting interest.
80
The Circle has a sincerity and an honesty that shames far more expensive but over-polished dramas. Plenty of movies have happy endings; The Circle shows you both the happy ending and the incredibly hard work it took to get there.
60
The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold
The sense of an invisible world being revealed is more potent than the film’s fairly standard portrayal of closeted life.
67
Its fascinations compromised by its clunkiness, the film is a necessary niche history that serves well enough as a primer, placing it just a cut above coasting on good intentions.