Mark Zuckerberg did not expect to change the world when he created Facebook. He did not mean to become a billionaire. In The Social Network, we see a character who just wanted to fit in and be a part of all the cool clubs. What makes Zuckerberg an incredible character is neither his genius nor his awkward charm, but his irony. This character is socially inept, as seen in the opening scene of the film in which his girlfriend, Erica Albright, breaks up with him.
But even though he is socially inept, his mind functions like a fly on the wall. In other words, he can see in and around every social interaction, but he can not belong within the confinements – he lives and thinks outside the box. After suffering the break-up, Mark strikes revenge by blogging about her to all the public. He drunkenly creates a website called Face-Mash with his nerdy friends and taps into the Harvard network in a matter of seconds. With computers, he is like the bank robber John Dillinger – he’s too quick, too fast and too smart for anyone to keep up with him. He leaves classes early and spits out answers to the most complex algorithms in a matter of seconds.
David Fincher is a director’s director, and in my mind, has never made a bad film. Some stick out more clearly than others (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). He is ambitious and artistic, meticulous in detail and always creates compositions that are aesthetically and intellectually satiating. He brings the best out of his actors, and chose to shoot this film on the digital RED camera. I saw this in a standard theater, and I couldn’t tell the difference.
Aaron Sorkin is one of the great American playwrights, and the bulk of what sells this film is his punchy dialogue. His dialogue is not only fun to listen to and too smart for its own good (like, say, a Tarantino movie), but it gets right to the heart of the story. His approach to this comic-drama is operatic in its emotions, going up and down, back and forth, swinging from comedy to tragedy, telling a story of sadness and happiness, passion and greed and he switches so gracefully – I cannot wait to get a copy of the screenplay just so I could read it again. If he does not win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, it will be another true mistake on the Academy’s part.
I see The Social Network as this day’s The Godfather but with computers and more social relevance. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg with nuance and subtlety. Yes he has an awkward voice like Michael Cera but no, he is not one-dimensional like him. Eisenberg’s character is complex and rich with emotion, and though at times he is very unlikeable, audiences will relate to him because we all know the feeling of not fitting in or being rejected, being a “creep” or a “weirdo.” The supporting cast also helps in giving great performances, as Andrew Garfield plays his best friend turned enemy Eduardo straight, and Justin Timberlake is charming and charismatic as Sean Parker.
Everyone with a Facebook account – which is probably everyone reading this review – must see this film. I saw it opened #1 at the box office twice in a row with $25 million and then $15 million – that’s a good start. But more and more people need to see this movie because it is so relevant to our time. It accounts for what we do and how we act. Yes, it is a tale of the digital age, but it contains components that have applied to story telling for centuries back all the way to Socrates with Greek tragedy.
Fincher is a virtuoso of a filmmaker and Sorkin is as clever a writer in Hollywood can be. Together with their cast and crew they bring out the story of Facebook where everything is separated by an LCD monitor and they elicit emotions of greed, anger, betrayal, sadness, opportunism, materialism, the American dream and the works. The Social Network is not a good film – it is a great film. To all the naysayers out there who are thinking “I don’t want to see a movie about Facebook,” think again. There is a lot more to seeing this movie than watching a bunch of kids type on keyboards. And when I watched this film, for the first time in years, I constantly kept getting the feeling that there was nothing else I should have been doing than simply watching this movie.
On a Connecticut College Camel Rating Scale, out of a possible four, I’m giving The Social Network 4 Camels, because it is a perfect movie.
