The Social Network is a film about the setting up of Facebook, which isnt really that interested in the actual truth of what happened. After all, while there were some courtroom machinations and back-stabbing, to be honest, the story on its own isnt really that scintillating. Instead David Finchers film, based on Aaron Sorkins screenplay, has a slightly bigger objective, massaging the actual truth to reveal the deeper reality and create a truly compelling chronicles of our times.
The story the film tells is passably interesting but fairly slight, and if Sorkin and Fincher didnt have much more interesting ideas, it would make for an ok TV movie at best. Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is a bit of a socially maladroit Harvard undergraduate wunderkind who, after being justifiably dumped by his girlfriend, angrily blogs about it before vindictively hacking into the Harvard database and setting up a website called Facemash. This rather misogynistic site allows users to rate whether female undergraduates are hot or not (with the pictures of the women stolen from Harvards servers), and it unsurprisingly gets Mark into a bit of trouble.
However Facemash serves as a sort of first step on the road to Facebook, or The Facebook as its initially known. Into the mix comes Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who supplies a small loan to help get Marks site off the ground, as well as the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer, although youd swear it was two real twins, as the effects are so good), who want Zuckerberg to help them create their own site, but Mark artfully plays them while putting his own plans in place. Saverin and the Winklevoss set in motion much of the meat of the plot, with both suing Zuckerberg once Facebook takes off, the former because he was basically pushed out of the company hed helped found, and the latter claiming Mark had stolen their ideas.
The final main player is Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the 20-something-year-old co-founder of Napster, who sees the “holy-shit, once-in-a-generation moment” potential of Facebook, comes onboard and helps shape its future.
Thats all fair enough, and in less brave hands would have played out as a nerdy underdog story of a guy with a dream who comes good. But this isnt that film. In fact its almost the opposite. Just about everyone in the movie agrees that Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole, and theyre right (it should be noted that while in real life he doesnt appear to be exactly the most charming of fellows, the films Zuckerberg is only loosely based on the real one, who had nothing to do with the movie). In some ways he is an overdog, a guy born into privilege, whose main problem is that he thinks he should be able to have whatever he wants and which he sees many around him having such as women, sex and great parties. However he lacks social skills and, well, real-life social network (one character comments he doesnt have three friends to rub together), and so does everything wrong. However what he does have are brains and drive.
Perhaps the smartest thing about the film is that in the way hes written, directed and played, Zuckerberg gives virtually nothing away. He is the centre of the movie, but at the same time hes as much a slightly obscure mirror for all the other characters, and the movies ideas, to bounce off of. Zuckerberg is constantly driving forwards and never giving much away, which allows him to be the foil against which films grander designs play out.
And those designs are to illuminate a world in which the internet, and sites like Facebook, have very quickly changed the ground rules for the world, and how this happened incredibly quickly while virtually everyone was looking the other way. Its a world where instead of power and influence being played out in boardrooms and on Wall Street, its amongst post-adolescents in their bedrooms whose brains hum with computer code. The very smart script plays all this out, for example using the elitist world of Harvard to show how the power has shifted from those who already have money and who traditionally have controlled all the access points to the market, to those who have the ideas and the skills to put them into motion via the internet, which allows virtually anyone who want to to go straight to the consumer (assuming they can attract the consumer, that is).
The Winklevoss court case almost seems to stem from their belief that just because of who they are rich and privileged they should be able to pay someone to change the world for them, and then keep all the cash for themselves. In the old days they could have, as Mark couldnt have got anything off the ground without large amounts of cash from someone like them, but we live in a new age where someone like Zuckerberg can potentially bypass them and go straight to market. Money no longer has as much power as computer bytes, and if you can harness the latter you can get the former Zuckerberg is after all famed for becoming a billionaire at 23.
Saverin meanwhile is almost the opposite of that, someone who deserves to be rewarded, but who in the modern world its far easier to screw over.
The Social Network loves the irony of a website built to help people connect and stay in touch with friends better, built by a man whose real life social network is all but non-existent. In many ways what Zuckerberg wants is to be a Winklevoss tall, handsome, excellent at sports and a hit with the ladies and thats what drives him. The Winklevosses want all that too, but just dont have the technical smarts needed to compete in this new world. Its the likes of Zuckerberg who have the power now, and at such a young age that it increasingly pushes the world towards a younger, increasingly inexperienced mindset. Are we, as the film suggests, not far off living in a world run by those who are little more than super-smart adolescents?
In many ways its difficult to describe why this film is so good. Its a movie that no matter how you describe it, sounds a bit dull. Other have compared it to films of the 70s like All The Presidents Men and Dog Day Afternoon, partly because they share the sense of being about a time, place and society as much as a particular story, but also because theyre films that far exceed the limits of their plot.
Through TV series like The West Wing and Studio 60, screenwriter Sorkin has shown himself to be one of the best writers around for commenting lucidly, insightfully and entertainingly on modern society, and he does that superbly here. Its a script that touches on so many ideas that your head will be buzzing after you leave the cinema. For example, is the somewhat juvenile internet-piracy mentality (why cant I have what I want, when I want, for free?) slipping off the web and into the adult real world? Indeed the film loves the fact that both Zuckerberg and Sean Parker got their start basically digitally stealing things and having little social conscience about doing it, but then arrogantly see it as an affront if anyone wants to take anything from them, as Saverin and the Winklevosses do.
Few directors could handle the material as assuredly as David Fincher. While on the surface the director seems incredibly restrained here compared to his previous efforts, in many ways its his tightest and most mature movie yet. Just the decision to have everyone fire off Sorkins dialogue as if talking is charged by the minute is believed to have shaved nearly 30 minutes off the projected running time. Its an astute way of handling the involved, slightly wordy and rapid fire way Sorkin writes, and gives the film an energy and immediacy it would otherwise lack.
The cast also need plenty of praise. Eisenberg is superb as Zuckerberg. Hes never likeable indeed hes often almost the opposite, the sort of arrogant, entitled person youd want to punch in real life but hes nevertheless magnetic. Like much of the rest of the cast, hes tasked with bringing to life a character who is as much an archetype of The Social Networks brave new world as they are a real, living human being. Even so, no one ever seems fake or merely there as a prop.
The film has come in for some criticism for its portrayal of women. All the women are peripheral characters, and are often little more than foils for the men. There is some justification for this, as despite the power-shift the movie dissects, its still about a world run by men, and pretty nerdy men at that. Part of their lack of understanding of other human beings is that they shove women into archetypal roles. They are Madonna and whore, unattainable beauties or bitches for men to blame their own failings on (e.g. the creation of Facemash). You can see why the film treats women the way it does Zuckerberg desperately wants beautiful women and sex, but the type of women hes after are a delusion, even if they appear to be what he wants from afar but its undoubtedly true that with a script that so wittily and cleverly deconstructs the world Facebook represents, its a shame they couldnt come up with at least one female character who could truly challenge this rather misogynistic view of the world.
Sorkin has defended himself by saying that the way women are depicted in the film is how it really was, but he changed plenty of other facts (not least that rather than being hopeless with women, Zuckerberg has had the same girlfriend since his Harvard days), so why go along so willingly with the misogyny and not challenge it?
However overall The Social Network is one of the best and most vital movies of the year. Its a film that feels more than the sum of its parts, illuminating the modern internet-connected world in ways others have tried and failed to do in the past. It may well become the Wall Street of the 2000s the film we look back on and say, that is what sums up that era. Indeed its interesting The Social Network is being released so close to the Wall Street sequel, Money Never Sleeps. While Oliver Stones new flick has a good stab at saying how the world has changed in the last 25 years, The Social Network does it better. While it may be different world, the creation of Facebook was nevertheless driven by the desire to live that Wall Street/American Psycho sex, drugs and women life. Zuckerberg wants all that, even if he lacks the social skills youd normally think would be necessary to get it, or as one character puts it to him, You’re not an asshole Mark, you’re just trying too hard to be one.
Overall Verdict: A film thats far better than youd ever expect, with a screenwriter, director and cast coming together to create a film that explores, explodes and illuminates how our world has changed while virtually nobody was paying attention (the world was too busy checking its Facebook messages).
Reviewer: Phil Caine