The Social Network

Dumped by his girlfriend and eager to impress a prestigious club, Harvard computer geek Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) creates a Web site that allows students to rate their female classmates. After much controversy and consternation, Zuckerberg and his friends create Facebook. As the social networking site takes off and launches Zuckerberg to newfound fame and fortune, he falls into conflict with his best friend/cofounder (Andrew Garfield) and a pair of privileged twins (Armie Hammer) whose idea he might have stolen.


I was in college when Facebook was launched, and I remember how quickly and voraciously it spread, converting naysayers and adding new schools and new members at an unfathomable pace. Naturally, the story behind this phenomenon is of curiosity to many members of my generation, whether they love or loathe Zuckerberg’s creation. But what makes The Social Network so interesting is that the story behind the story is almost as compelling and curious as the film itself.


Directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin (a wonderfully paranoid downer and a clever leftist technophobe, respectively), The Social Network bares only a casual resemblance to the truth. Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg as an isolated, insecure, yet intelligent jerk. Obviously, the young billionaire didn’t get to where he is by being Mr. Sunshine, but the fact that he was in a stable relationship while the film was being made clashes inconveniently with the celluloid image. Likewise, co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) is made to be a much more sympathetic character while downplaying his incompetence as CFO, and Saverin’s rival, Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), is given a more antagonistic role – no wonder given that Saverin served as a consultant for the book that served as the movie’s source material.


Despite the overt factual manipulation, The Social Network remains a generally well-crafted film. The leads deliver memorable performances, Sorkin’s dialogue is as sharp as ever, and the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross soundtrack hits all the right notes. Fincher caught some flak for his reliance on CGI – how else could he get both Winklevoss brothers in the same shot? – but the end result is fairly seamless.


Like Oliver Stone’s W., The Social Network suffers from not achieving enough chronological distance from its subject. Both films also subvert reality in the name of storytelling. The key difference is that the Fincher/Sorkin effort is marked by a more consistent tone and a more harmonious creative vision.


8/10