Good development, weak premise

Clearly, what you win, if you win, is your life. But I found the lack of why very very disconcerting. What is the survivor supposed to survive for? Some indication would have been very helpful.

I have seen various theories, including some of the explanations on the (?) movie makers' thread. That the aliens may have wanted to depopulate the Earth and, thus, help humankind. That they wanted to experiment on our social behavior. Unfortunately, the movie itself does not give any indication towards any of this, so it's safe to say they are just pure speculations.

Besides, the "game" was designed to pit everyone against everyone, so as a social experiment it would have failed because people were given no chance to prove their kindness and cooperation and stay alive. The equation was clear: you're a b!tch? You die. You're kind and honorable? You die just the same. Thing is, societies work because we have a lot to gain by working together, and we have common goals - which becomes a moot point in an only-one-survivor scenario, where everyone is your designated enemy.

So what on earth was the point of the whole thing? It sort of reminded me of Cube, where you have again a bunch of humans caught in a life-or-death game with no purpose in sight. But that played like an eerie, surreal movie, it consisted of a strange journey, and the rules of the game were much more permissive - you had more than one possibility to navigate the cubes, and the number of survivors was not limited. So the purpose was equally missing, but the mood and the method were more interesting. That could have played like a social experiment, or a test of strength vs smarts, or what have you.
Then of course it reminds one of Hunger Games / Battle Royale, where the method was equally flat (be the only survivor), but at least the purpose was obvious and made some sense - extermination because dominance & remembrance of aggressive times / evil teens.
In terms of listing prejudices in an end-of-the-world scenario, the movie reminded me of After the Dark - which botched its premise terribly, but while it worked it generated some interesting arguments for and against various social, economic or professional biases. In Circle, the list of preconceptions was not very poignant, seeing how they had to kill someone fast, so any pretext would have worked just as well as random voting.

Now, considering the premise, the development was well done, the deductions and brief arguments were consistent, the characters were very varied and interesting, and the human reactions were well played. But the premise was too weak - all it really allowed for was a list of standard human reactions and a list of generic prejudices people have against each other.

Wait, I have realized something after reading the message boards - about the list of prejudices, in fact the movie manages to present various biases and behaviors of various types of people without imposing an agenda. That's a remarkable achievement.

there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above her shoulder