The Social Network

When I heard David Fincher, of Fight Club, Seven and Zodiac fame, was going to direct a movie about the founding (and subsequent lawsuits) of Facebook, I wasn't sure what to think. On one hand, you have one of the premiere directors of his time tackling a difficult subject that is more and more relevant in a less and less personal world. On the other, you have a movie about Harvard students writing code and becoming billionaires  after doing so (to their credit, in a visionary way). The Social Network had the potential to bomb. It also had the potential to be a damn good movie. I did not, however, expect it to be the best movie of Fincher's career. I did not expect it to be a funny, intense and exciting movie about geeks turning into gods. I did not expect it to be one of the best encapsulations of any generation's mores, or a harrowing snapshot of the zeitgeist we're all surrounded by. It's all of the above and more.


Fall 2003, Harvard University. Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) gets dumped by his girlfriend, Erica (Rooney Mara, who'll get her remember-my-name role in Fincher's following adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy), gets drunk, blogs bad-bad things about Erica, writes some code, crashes Harvard's servers at four in the morning, and becomes infamous in the process, by means of a website that allows students to grade female undergrads by looks. He gets academic probation, but draws attention of the Winklevoss twins, who have a business proposition for him. Zuckerberg's only friend, Eduardo Saverin gets involved, and the rest is history. Or is it? The line between fact and fiction here is blurry, and, to be frank, irrelevant.

The acting is blissful, from top to bottom. Jesse Eisenberg pulls off one for the ages in portraying a conflicted and (don't laugh) tragic figure. He's tailor-made for this role, and never lets us fully hate Zuckerberg as much as we would want to, easily juggling between smart quips, geek-speak, and the near-autistic social interactions he has with the people that surround him. The twins are both portrayed by Armie Hammer, who goes all across the spectrum (The twins are, of course, complementary), and hasn't received nearly enough praise for his work here.

The unsung heroes of this movie, though, are Justin Timberlake and especially Andrew Garfield. Timberlake plays Sean Parker (of Napster fame) with a devilish ease. You never know just how much is crazy, how much is cold, calculated tact, and how much is both when he's on screen. Garfield steals the whole affair, locks it away, then rubs it in everybody's face. He's the only important guy here who we, as viewers, can fully empathize with, the only one who even tries to understand the scope of everything that's going on at a human level ( Zuckerberg and especially Parker have the business level of things handled, as far as that's concerned). All should and probably will get nods come award time, even more.

Fincher's mark is all over this movie, and if his track-record wasn't enough, this should be all the proof naysayers will need. He makes coding as exciting as bank-heists, if not more so, adapting what probably is a 3 hour script in a 2 hour assault upon the intellect. And it is. The script is insanely smart, full of blink-and-you-will-miss-them moments. See this one several times and I guarantee you will not be bored.


 I loved The Social Network, obviously. It also unsettled me a little. Thoughts of privacy, or rather lack-thereof ran through my mind after seeing it. Thoughts of betrayal. Fincher took a story that could have easily been feel-good movie material and turned it into a slap on the wrist of the very people that it's intended for. If you don't feel a little guilty for having a Facebook profile after seeing this one, you just don't get it. 

All of the above must sound like a documentary, or a very interesting story and just that. Not true, of course. It's also part satire (that doesn't get much stingier) and part social commentary. It's about relationships, hate, greed, cynicism and love. Fincher has filmed the unfilmable. A few years from now, they are going to be teaching courses about this one. After seeing The Social Network, I had an uncontrollable urge to see Citizen Kane. Praise shouldn't come higher than that. Some say it's going to be regarded as a cultural icon for my generation. I say it already is.

10/10 Stefan