Circle of Power

Plot

Yvette Mimieux plays the chief executive of a giant corporation called "Mystique", but the organization is also known as "Executive Development Training", or EDT. Christopher Allport plays Jack Nilsson, a decent all-American young executive.

Top management executives are required to spend a weekend with Bianca Ray at a hotel, where they are put under psychological pressure. As a prerequisite to the training course, participants must sign a waiver giving the company the release to physically and psychologically abuse the individuals in the course. The participants struggle with their shortcomings, such as obesity and alcoholism. Another individual is a closet homosexual, and a fourth is a transvestite. At one point in the film, the obese trainee is forced to eat trash and discarded food in front of the other seminar participants. Eventually, the seminar executives and their wives lose their inhibitions later on in the "consciousness-raising" coursework.

Reception

The film won a Dramatic Films Award at the 1982 Sundance Film Festival. Circle of Power played under the title Mystique at the 1981 Chicago International Film Festival.

A review in The New York Times described Circle of Power as an "attack on monolithic belief systems," and referred to it as "a worthwhile movie." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, writing that "...it's an entertaining film with serious intentions." Ebert compared it to events reported in Boston newspapers about a man who died during a seminar, commenting: "Art anticipates life." Ebert questioned the conceit of the film, asking the question: "Could a major corporation get away with this brainwashing?" The authors of the book upon which the film was based concluded their preface by stating: "And please remember as you read -- it's true."