The Social Network

There's something audacious about making a film about Facebook... if it had been done by a relatively unknown director (EG. Not David Fincher) then it would have a decidedly uphill battle to wage in order to get people onside. However, with Fincher's overrated track record, it's somewhat expected that this underachieving film would enjoy the popularity it's currently enjoying (ahem, ranked 122nd best film of all time on imdb.com?!) It probably also helps that Facebook.com is currently one of the biggest new aspects of modern society... and I don't say that lightly. Whatever the future may bring (and I don't neccessarily believe that Facebook is here to stay), the fact remains that it is a huge deal at the moment. I mean, even your parents probably know about it.

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, giving a good performance remniscent of his breakthrough work in The Squid and the Whale) is an ambitious but unpopular programming undergrad at Harvard. After his girlfriend breaks up with him due to his jerkish tendencies he exacts an alcohol-fuelled revenge via a series of spiteful blogs and a short-lived security-comprimising website known as 'Facemash'. This attracts the attention of the Harvard elite, who try to enlist his help for a social networking site. Zuckerberg is inspired by this germ of an idea, and teams up with Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to create Facebook - a revolutionary attempt to replicate the social experience on the internet via the use of web 2.0 technologies. This groundbreaking idea attracts the attention of Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the disgraced and broke founder of notorious filesharing site Napster, and before you know it these guys are all sitting on something big and at a loss as to how best to capitalise on it.

There are some things I really liked about The Social Network, such as the fact that it's breaking new ground in biopics by treating programmers like the rockstars of a new cutting-edge medium (and, to be fair, there's no reason why I.T. superstars shouldn't start getting films along these lines when every second musician has been getting them for quite some time now). I also liked Aaron Sorkin's script and the way it touches on Zuckerberg's flaws and what would drive someone like him to create something like Facebook. Zuckerberg comes across as an arrogant wunderkind, but these flaws are depicted as the Aspergers-styled side-effects of genius. The film largely paints him as an underdog... he has this unbelievable talent but isn't liked by others, and he finds it hard to break into the Harvard elite. He's also shown to be the only person capable of making something like Facebook work, so even though there are these other people in the film claiming intellectual ownership over the ideas behind Facebook we still feel like he's the victim when they come calling for a slice of the pie. The Social Network doesn't twist the truth so far as to make the film into the traditionally-formulaic biopic, by the film's end my sympathies lay mostly with Saverin - the cooler and less nerdy co-founder of Facebook. But there's something about the way the film avoids addressing Zuckerberg's strange behaviour that feels a little too convenient.

I also think that Fincher missed a huge opportunity... if he's going to tackle a relatively untouched subject matter like the internet then he should invest some more creative energy into making a film that's more original in terms of structure and dynamics. Most of the praise this film is getting is mostly due to what it is, not how it is. If you took the exact same cast and crew and turned it into a film about a non-internet related business venture then I suspect that no one would really care about it. You'd probably also have to take Fincher's name off it too, as he seems to have a unjustifiably healthy contingent of fanboys who have refused to go away since Fight Club. It's an interesting story but at the end of the day it's just a lot of people talking without much else happening. For a film about impossibly young superprogrammers trailblazing their way into new territory and taking over the world it's all a bit too pedestrian. The Social Network shows these guys making enemies because they've created something new and highly bankable... not only that, they're finding new ways for humans to live their lives. Surely something as big as this deserves a film treatment that's a bit more cutting-edge in construction and execution?

Fincher touches on some interesting things like Facebook's origin as a tool for Harvard elitists, and the fact that Zuckerberg literally trades his one true friend for all the hangers-on attracted by his success and money (and it's worth mentioning that Timberlake is actually quite good as the parasitic Sean Parker). Beyond that there isn't much else happening below the surface, for all the film's promise (exemplified by it's consciously literal name, The Social Network) there isn't a lot that seperates it from any other biopic about a business hotshot (The Informant!), sporting talent (Without Limits) or famed musician (The Runaways). It's a good film, but it's also definitely overrated.

TRIVIA: Armie Hammer plays the Winklevoss twins. This was achieved by having Josh Pence (who had a similar body type) play the second twin and then electronically mapping Hammer's face onto him so that they would look identical.

DIRECTOR: David Fincher
WRITER/SOURCE: Aaron Sorkin, based on the book Accidental Millionaires by Ben Mezrick (which is based on the true story behind the foundation of Facebook)
KEY ACTORS: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rashida Jones, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Facebook.com. You might have heard of it.
- Accidental Millionaires is a biography by Ben Mezrich that covers the real events behind the creation of the site.
- Ben Mezrich also wrote Bringing Down the House, another true story about hotshot university students using their talents for glory and financial gain. This was adapted into the film 21.
- Mezrich has also written Rigged, Ugly Americans and Busting Vegas, all non-fiction works that deal with similar themes.