Review: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
There are a handful of filmmakers whose movies are event films for me. I don’t care what it’s about, but I’ll be first in line for the newest picture from the likes of Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Aronofsky, Cuaron, and Sam Mendes. Going into The Social Network, I didn’t care much that it was about Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and the site’s seemingly overnight transformation into a generational phenomenon. That’s all fine, dandy, and interesting, but I had no problem checking it out on blu-ray at some point near next year’s Oscars even after the months of positive buzz I’ve heard about Aaron Sorkin’s script. The biggest draw for me was David Fincher.
Fincher is undeniably one of the most talented filmmakers working today; a favorite of mine who has given us edgy classics like Fight Club and Se7en, and, more recently, critical darlings like Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Not many can set (and maintain) the mood for a movie as fast as Fincher can. His pacing may briefly drag at times, but you’re never looking at something that isn’t important; it’s all part of the plan. And even at his most gritty, Fincher’s movies are beautifully shot. The Social Network is no different, and in some cases, Network may be Fincher’s best.
The Social Network is the (apparently, mostly accurate) biography of the world’s youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), and the inception (or is it theft?) of Facebook, the 500-million-member social network. At its heart, Network is about not wanting to be alone. It’s about wanting a true relationship with a person that an Internet connection and profile page can’t bring. Zuckerberg is painted as a bitter, clique-hating (and -admiring) narcissist by day, and a brilliant, lightning-fast hacker by intoxicated night. After a relationship misfire with his girlfriend, Erica (Rooney Mara), Zuckerberg thrusts himself into inevitably crashing Harvard’s network with his FaceMash revenge site. The stunt garners the attention of Harvard elitists and crew champions, the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence), and their entrepreneurial business partner Divya Narendra (Max Minghella), who approach Zuckerberg with an opportunity that will bump his position on the social ladder and utilize his skills as a masterful coding whiz. After hearing the pitch to the Winklevoss’ HarvardConnect, another Harvard social network, Zuckerberg improves upon the idea and devises “the Facebook”. The rest of the film follows Zuckerberg’s legal battles with the Winklevoss brothers & Narendra and Facebook co-founder and former best friend Eduardo Saverin. While almost half of the movie takes place with Zuckerberg and co. refereed by lawyers as each member of the financial tiff dodges questions and argues over semantics and linguistics, The Social Network is never anything but a fascinating character study.
I hope that Aaron Sorkin is prepping his Oscar speech right now, because the screenplay is stellar. Sorkin is known for a many things: like creating Sports Night and the Emmy-award-winning political juggernaut, The West Wing, and writing A Few Good Men. A lot of people think that repeatable and witty dialogue equates “good screenwriting”, but that line of thinking can ignore all of the work that went into crafting the structure of the story and every moment that is realized on screen by the director. When it comes to dialogue I agree that wit is important, but great dialogue comes out of what’s inferred by the character as opposed to an obvious, on-the-nose statement that sounds unnatural. Sorkin is a master of dialogue. Nothing spoken ever sounds forced and almost everything that Zuckerberg says is meant to hide and deflect from his real problems. If you only listen to what is spoken, then you’ll miss all of the details in the subtext. But best of all, the script is hilarious, which enhances this drama and easily makes the story more engrossing than a would-be Zuckerberg biopic that just trudged around seriously.
One thing that I love about Sorkin is that he never writes stupid, pointless characters. I despise stupid characters. Call me pretentious, but I could watch intelligent characters talk to each other all day, every day for the rest of my life and be completely content. I like oblivious, tragically ignorant, and naive characters, but nothing irks me more than imbecilic characters spouting idiotic things to each other on screen. Truly, my kind of script is one that is witty, powerful, engrossing, hilarious, and intelligent; The Social Network possesses every one of those qualities.
Now, it’s hard to argue with one of the masters, but my only issue with the script is that the third act and the film’s climax doesn’t land hard enough, and when the title cards at the end begin to fade in I was stunned that there wasn’t another thirty minutes. On one hand, I was so caught up in the story that it could have gone another hour and I wouldn’t have cared one bit, but considering that I’m a structure snob (just ask Colin), I have to think that either the build up to the showdown (the climax of the film) wasn’t strong enough, thus the payoff and dénouement (the period of time in the film directly following the end of the climax up until the end of the film) won’t feel as polished and relieving, or this is a directing and editing issue and Sorkin’s screenplay remains immaculate. Either way, if this is the only complaint I can come up with then I’m obviously stretching to be critical. While Sorkin and Fincher’s work here might be brilliant, they aren’t the only ones who delivered wonderfully.
The cast is fantastic. I have no idea how the real Zuckerberg acts in real life, but I think I would prefer Jesse Eisenberg’s performance, because he nails the character on paper; he embodies the Mark completely. Without him Network would fall flat, because you may have a great script to start from and a visionary director who can guide you, but without an extraordinary actor in the lead the movie won’t work. Luckily, Eisenberg is the actor they needed, and along with phenomenal co-stars including the new Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, and my soon-to-be-favorite actor, Justin Timberlake, who kills as Napster creator Sean Parker, Eisenberg leads The Social Network to great success. And since the Oscar race is gearing up, I don’t think it’s too early to call Eisenberg a shoe-in, and maybe even a lock, for Best Actor.
I think in hindsight, I rated Toy Story 3 too high. It’s not that it’s not a fantastic film — it’s about as perfect as a movie can get — but the reason why TS3 is so amazing is that it takes the audience’s nostalgia and perfectly retells the story. My problem is that it’s not ambitious, and I think that is where the line between a 9 and a 10 must be drawn. The Social Network’s only crime might be that it’s a phenomenally made movie that doesn’t move the genre forward in any way. Does it have to? No, nor do I expect it or other films to. It’s unfortunate that Inception was released this year, because we’d probably have our Oscar front-runner with The Social Network. As the award season starts to ramp up it looks like these two might be neck-and-neck until some no-name, summer bomb comes in and steals the prize in the end (I’m looking at you Hurt Locker). For me, I’ll always side with ambitious filmmaking over the same old dramatic fair, so while I still contend that Inception is the best movie of the year, The Social Network is only in second by a nose. With a beautiful cinematography, a killer score by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Book of Eli composer Atticus Ross, top-notch directing and writing, an amazing cast and an interesting story, The Social Network shouldn’t be missed.
Overall: 9/10
Directed by David Fincher. Written by Aaron Sorkin. Based on the book, The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. Cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth. Edited by Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall. Production Design by Donald Graham Burt. Music by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara, Joseph Mazzello, Josh Pence, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, and Rashida Jones.
