The Social Network

Maybe I'm too old. No, not maybe, I am. I saw this characters as aliens of sorts. I know they represent today's landscape, brrrrr. The film as a film is one of the best of David Fincher but the universe it explores gave the chills. A world approaching its end, fast. The youth of the characters made it even more sinister. I couldn't detect their soul or any evidence of its existence. In a way they represent the worst of the previous generations. Roman Emperors or Wall Street. Profit is the name of the game and the ideas come out of boredom of longings to get laid. Love and friendship, loyalty and/or honor as obsolete as good manners. Jesse Eisenberg is chillingly perfect as the humanoid that started it all - or did he? - Justin Timberlake keeps surprising me. Good, very good and Andrew Garfield, the most recognizable of the characters is a victim of sorts and he'll be destroyed no matter how much money he gets. How I wish this was merely a science-fiction film.

...and that's "The Social Network".

It joins the ranks of his best, and just like many of his his previous works, has been reviled before it was properly understood.

For months before it came out, it was the laughing stock of people who were off-put by the idea of a "movie about Facebook" (even though it's easy to look and see that it's about the founding of Facebook and the people behind it), just like "Fight Club" is dismissed as a violent film about people fighting, or that "Se7en" is just a serial killer movie.

Not to get sidetracked, though.

"The Social Network" is filmmaking and storytelling of a high order, that shows the grand irony of a socially inept Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg who ended up creating one of the largest social phenomena of the twenty-first century (and love Facebook or hate it, it most certainly is that). The story works as an engaging, fascinating character study; at the beginning of the story, Mark is a socially maladjusted reject, and even after several million 'friends' and a few billion dollars later, he remains pretty much the same.

The outstanding acting, style and direction, as well as the great script armed to the teeth with sharp dialogue is what people are likely to miss by dismissing it as a mere 'Facebook movie'.

Even if it were just a "movie about Facebook", why is such subject matter off-limits? Things that have become a large part of our culture shouldn't be reflected in our art? Or, is it because of that? That technology is such a scary thing and needs to be dismissed? The indisputable fact is that everything that's going on with social networking and the world of the Internet is incorporated into the ideas of a certain corner of history, this one, which will be remembered as such, and "The Social Network" may very well be remembered as a film to define that era.

So please, this is one of the films to see this year. Don't get hung up on the idea that it's just a silly "Facebook movie", or else you'll be missing out on an excellent picture.

This is a film which simply shouldn't work, but it does - magnificently. A story centred on a teenager who becomes the world's youngest billionaire, a web site that reaches a million users in two years, and a cast of real life characters with names like Zuckerberg and Winklevoss just shouldn't be possible. A convoluted tale of raw conflict on the origins of a new type of web site should not lend itself to an expensive movie as opposed to a television documentary. It succeeds because it is not about the technology but about creativity and conflict and about friendship and betrayal. It succeeds because of a magical combination of accomplished direction, scintillating dialogue and superb acting.

The direction comes from David Fincher who has had variable success, all the way from "Alien 3" to Se7en", but here he is right on form with a flashy, but tightly structured, presentation that never fails to command your attention and interest. The all-important, sparkling script is courtesy of Aaron Sorkin who gave us "The West Wing" - the best television series ever - and yet apparently does not do social networking.

At the heart of the movie is a brilliant, Oscar-worthy performance from Jesse Eisenberg as the 19 year old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, the genius behind "The Facebook" (the social network), the unsympathetic anti-hero of the adventure, a borderline sociopath variously described by women characters as "an asshole" and someone "just trying so hard to be" one. Andrew Garfield is excellent as Zuckerberg's Harvard roommate and co-founder of the site Eduardo Savarin; thanks to the wonders of CGI, Arnie Hammer manages to be terrific as both the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss; while singer Justin Timberlake is a revelation as the Napster founder Sean Parker. This is a testosterone-charged fable with room for women only in minor support roles - ironic in that getting girls was the impetus for the Facebook project.

The film opens in 2003 with a breathlessly wordy encounter and closes in 2009 with a poignantly wordless scene. In between, the story zips along at the frenetic pace characterised by the business itself. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's book "The Accidental Millionaires", the framework for the fascinating narrative is not one but two courtroom dramas or, to be more accurate, pre-trial hearings (both resulted in out-of-court settlements which tells you a lot). Clearly you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Fast paced and interesting, this movie tries too hard to portray Zuckenberg in a better light than he deserves. He was not a good coder. He was much more exploitative than movie suggest, as his later love affair with CIA and selling personal data of facebook users for nefarious purposes proved. This guy is far less charismatic than portrayed (and he isn't portrayed as particularly charismatic to begin with) and far more calculating, menacing and Machiavelian than described. The only thing the movie did show worse than it was was Zuckenberg incel situation. Zuckenberg was dating a Chinese golddigger/smartdigger/Harvarddigger the whole time and they got married.

But despite being more positive towards its subject than they would warrant, the movie manages to capture part of the psychopathic nature of facebook and its founding. Artistic liberties were taken in order to humanize these monsters, to make us care and for plot not to be boring. In that it succeeded, but humanizing monsters like Zuckenberg or Hitttlerr is never a good idea in a movie. However, you at least get an idea about the depths of the cutthrooat depravity that was only confirmed by the fact that facebook abuses the trust of its sheeple all the time, and a movie is fun to watch, and deserves a praise even if it is an idealised/sanitized/overseksed version of the sorry reality this movie is based on, and as a movie is well worth a watch, but keep in mind the reality was much darker and more boring at the same time.

Let's start with the script. It's great. Written by soon-to-be-best- adapted-screenplay-nominee/winner Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network's writing is intelligent and demanding on multiple levels: most obviously, the story is cleverly structured across dual lawsuits, but there's an equal amount of sophistication to Sorkin's character work--Zuckerberg is never quite capable of maintaining a dialog, Eduardo always stops just short of explicating his emotions.

Those two characters are wonderfully played by inevitable acting award nominees Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield--Eisenberg owns the brisk pace of the film while Garfield brings most of the humanity--who anchor a terrific ensemble--SAG best ensemble, perhaps? The film's score is a perfectly atmospheric concoction of electronica from edgy dark horse best original score nominees Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and it's all united under the name and vision of David Fincher, who did not win an Oscar for Fight Club or Zodiac or Benjamin Button.

All of this is to say two things: this is a really great movie from a phenomenal creative team, and also there are times when the film feels somewhat calculated for accolades--never in the repugnantly safe, crowd- pleasing, middle-brow Benjamin Button sense, but in the sweetly transparent sense of a kid who did all his chores and is suggesting that he might deserve a cookie.

You know what? Give David Fincher a cookie. The Social Network is thoroughly intelligent and engaging as a modern biopic and as an examination of evolving cultural currency, and it's also one of my favorite films this year. -TK 10/1/10