The Social Network

I love social networks; without them there are a number of people who I almost certainly would have lost track of over the years. Heck, you probably found the link to this review through Twitter... or Buzz, Friendfeed, Tumblr, Myspace, or the current big daddy, Facebook, so I guess that maybe you like them too.

“The Social Network” is the new film by director David Fincher (“Fight Club”), based on the book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich, about the birth of Facebook, and the controversy about who really created it.. As if having Fincher directing was not enough, the screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”, “Sports Night”); with names like that in charge I went into this film with some pretty high expectations.

The story is told through a series of legal depositions where Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg - “Zombieland”, “Adventureland”) is being sued by his former best friend, and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) as well as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence), whose idea for a Harvard-only social network seemingly inspired what would become Facebook. As the parties in the two depositions are questioned the movie gives us flashbacks to the incidents they are describing.

Lets speak plainly here, this movie does not portray Mark Zuckerberg as a nice guy; a genius certainly, but also a complete horse's arse. From the opening scene where he gets dumped by his girlfriend for implying that he is doing her future a favour by dating her, Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg as someone who is either truly incapable of interfacing with live people, or as someone who suffers from a mental handicap. He's rude, a jerk, insecure, and completely incapable of going more than thirty seconds without insulting someone, but he's also easily manipulated in the right hands.

The right hands belong to Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the creator of Napster. Parker is everything Zuckerberg wants to be; he's smart, popular with women, people respect him, and he can do pretty much whatever he wants. Parker can see the potential in what Zuckerberg and Saverin are doing, but he thinks he knows how to make it go even bigger. Saverin is completely against Parker's ideas, and this puts Zuckerberg in a position of choosing between someone he respects and the only person he could truly call a friend.

Sorkin's writing shines through beautifully in the movie's dialog. He manages to write a conflict where there are no heroes and no villains, there are simply a bunch of people who all think that they are in the right. From Zuckerberg's thinly veiled insults to Parker's overly confident manner, the movie manages to keep the audience laughing while still telling an interesting story without ever really giving you someone you should be rooting for.

Of course the best writing in the world would be worthless in the hands of bad actors; luckily the young stars are able to pull it off. Playing against his normal awkward nice-guy characters, Eisenberg creates a perfect genius jerk; playing things cold and clinical for the most part with just enough human in there to still keep Zuckerberg from being completely unsympathetic. Garfield brings a nice balance to Saverin, making him seem both smart and professional, but still susceptible to emotions that seem foreign to his friend. As far as Timberlake goes, this is the perfect role for him: a complete douche-bag.

The only things really going against this movie are its length and ,strangely enough, its music. The movie is pretty long, coming in at about two hours, but it would be hard to cut anything; the parts that get dull are important to the plot, and the parts that are not important to the plot (Eduardo's girlfriend and the scarf, for example) are genuinely funny.

The musical choices for the movie are not bad, per say, but they are a little odd. The film's original score is by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, yes, that would be the Ross and Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame, and it shows. A lot of the film's music is tense and brooding; stuff that would be a lot more at home in a horror film than a serious drama with comedic highlights. It's not that the music is bad, it's just that I kept waiting for the zombies to show up.

“The Social Network” is one of those rare movies that plays computer use straight; characters speak a language that many people will find foreign. Is your average movie goer going to understand what an “Apache server” is? How about what “PHP” is? No, probably not. I consider myself fairly computer literate, and a lot of that was Greek to me (but then I could never wrap my head around programming). I like that they took this route in dealing with computers though; programming is done in a plain black window and they don't try to make it look cool or exciting. If you want to see flashy montage sequences where programming/hacking is done using cute computer graphics and people hitting keyboards very quickly then go rent “Hackers” because this is not that movie.

It will be interesting to see how this movie is ultimately received both critically and in the box office. It is a good movie, probably even award-worthy, but it's a little Inside Baseball . I would compare it to movies like “The Late Shift” or “Pirates of Silicon Valley” in the sense that the subject matter may not be that interesting to most people, but that the movie itself still manages to be quite compelling.

Even if you are not that interested in computers or Facebook, “The Social Network” is still an interesting movie. With a strong script, good directing, and a solid cast, this is a great movie to go see. It's fun and entertaining while still maintaining a strong sense of drama. Don't forget to whip your phone when the movie is over and Facebook about seeing it; at least that's what people did at the screening I was at.

“The Social Network” opens nationwide on October 1st, and contains adult language, sexual situations, and drug and alcohol use.