Movie Review: The Social Network

I wasn't sure if it was just me, but there are two moments in David Fincher's "The Social Network", where the conversation between two people becomes somewhat distorted with noise from the movie's soundtrack. This happens in the two scenes with Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and his soon to be ex/ex girl friend Erica (Rooney Mara). The conversations take place in large public areas, where many people are talking all at once, and loud music is blasting through. Much is said between these two highly intellectual people from different wave-lengths, yet there isn't any feeling of connection.

In "The Social Network", we are meant to believe that this lack of connection Mark feels for his girlfriend is what sets him off to create Facebook, the social scene in the silicon Valley age.

Mark as played by Eisenberg and written by Aaron Sorkin, is a computer prodigy, he lacks the social skills he so desperately wants, yet as some sort of revenge, creates his own social network in his computer in a way he fully understands.

I was hooked in "The Social Network" right from the get-go, to me it is the most entertaining movie I've seen all year. It has a brisk pace that keeps its rythm all the way through without missing a beat. The dialogue is bright and witty, and the acting is done to perfection.

The film, is of course about the creation of Facebook and rather about the time we live in now, to be more specific, the time America lives in now. Mark Zuckerberg in this film has been compared to Charles Foster Kane in the way he's blinded by ambition, but it doesn't make him a bad guy, in fact I found myself rooting for him at time.

Mark is a brilliant guy, who came up with a brilliant idea, yet to say that the idea was entirely his might not be exactly accurate, the film does a nice job in deconstructing the founding of Facebook, and by doing that we get the sense at the kind of guy Mark Zuckerberg was.

We first meet Mark on that fateful date with his girlfriend, which prompts him to go back to his Harvard dorm room, and write nasty things about her on his blog. As sort of a prank, he and his roommates create a site on their computer that rates the "hotness" of different girls on campus. He gets into trouble, but his actions sets off the idea of Facebook in motion.

Mark meets the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer), who give him the idea of creating a social network exclusively for Harvard people. Mark then creates a partnership with his best and only friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) and makes him CFO of a new website he calls "The Facebook".

The film goes back and forth in time cross cutting between a lawsuit Mark has between the Winklevoss twins, and with Eduardo who sued him in real life. What the film does get across very well was even if Mark should've shared the credit to these people, he was the one with the ambition to see it go big. He gets some help from Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the man behind Nabster who shows him what Facebook could be.

In the middle of it all we get the sense that Mark isn't interested in the money at all, he does feel this was his idea, he wants the credit. The tragedy of the film comes with the fact that in the end, he's still the same guy he was in the beginning, he can't quite connect with people on a personal level. The real Mark Zuckerberg may not be like that at all, how are we to know, the point is, it makes for a very fascinating character study.

"The Social Network" is a film that I think works on all four cylinders, when you have this much talent, it's hard to see how it could fail. The collaboration between Fincher and Sorkin, sometimes reminded me of Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht. That might've had something to do with the pacing, the rapid fire dialogue, if there were more women in the picture you'd swear this were some sort of screwball comedy.

At times, I did long for more of a female voice, particularly because the Rooney Mara character was so compelling the few scenes she was in, yet I understood that she had to stay distant from Mark in order for the film to work.

I would say "The Social Network" is David Fincher's most accomplished film, he actually may not be getting much of the credit here seeing that this is an Aaron Sorkin screenplay, which has been taking most notice. But watch what Fincher does with these heavy dialogue scenes, sometimes they just show two people sitting at the table talking. Take the seen between Timberlake and Eisenberg in a club, and how he shows Timberlake's character almost menacing in the lights flashing on him.

Much should be said of the editing between people. It sometimes becomes a juggling act, but it pays off really well each time. There is a scene where Eduardo is confronting Mark over the phone about freezing his accounts, meanwhile his crazy girlfriend is setting fire to his bed. Not a beat is missed, and it gives for a great comedic payoff in the end.

"The Social Network" to me is a film with a pulse, you know it's there, you can't take your eyes off it, each frame and piece of dialogue is alive, I was lead out of a stupor and taken in to see something vibrant on the screen, I can't wait to see it again.