The Social Network (2010)

Movie Info

Whoa…This is so much better than my Apple II

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) has a problem.  He is a great programmer and suppose to be having the time of his life while attending Harvard, but Mark can’t get a break in the social world.  Mark gets his chance at popularity by making a website called the Harvard Connection…but Mark has other ideas on how the Harvard Connection should work.  These ideas lead him to accusations of theft and betrayal, but also make him one of the richest men in the world.

Directed by David Fincher, The Social Network tells a semi-historical account of the creation of Facebook.  The film was released to critical acclaim and won Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score with nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Eisenberg), Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Mixing (The King’s Speech was its main rival).

So…like you aren’t pissed or anything that I kind of screwed you over?

The Social Network is very, very smooth.  The story of “the Facebook” and its creation is interspersed with all the legal wrangling that Zuckerberg has faced since making it.  The movie just flows.  It does a great job painting a complex picture of Zuckerberg, and makes the viewer question what is real and what is made up.  Eisenberg sometimes can come off as a complete jerk, but manages to pull off a confused sympathy also because you can see him making mistakes that he is blind to.

The movie also feels very Shakespearian in how Zuckerberg keep betraying friends.  His relationship with Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and even his interactions with the Winklevoss twins (amazingly played by one person Armie Hammer…his face was superimposed on the body of another person) show that Zuckerberg was just backwards in his thinking…or really did just care about the money.  That is what the movie does really nicely, it doesn’t give the answers, and in multiple viewings, Zuckerberg’s motivations can change.  Napster’s founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) comes off as a villain and could easily be seen as an Iago type character.

So Zuckerberg…as much of a dick as you are, I’m twice the dick

Despite being a current film, the movie is very stylized, and Fincher does manage to let his directing shine.  I was glad to see Fincher get a lot of critical acclaim for this film since his films often are rather extreme.  Here he brings the same urgency to the picture but he has to do it in a way that fits a story that is essentially a college film and a courtroom drama…which is really tough to do.

The Social Network is a great modern story (the events take place just a few years before the film) and that gives it a weird sense of “current-ness”.  It will be interesting to see how the film holds up ten or twenty years in the future, but for now Fincher provides a great ride.  Definitely “Like” The Social Network if you get the chance.