Bryan's Movie Review: The Social Network ****

Facebook. 

It's weird that, by the time I have kids, I'll probably be telling stories about what life was like before Facebook was invented.  That world will likely seem foreign to them.  Of course, this whole scenario is contingent on both my having kids some day and my wanting to bore them with stories about my life, neither of which is a certainty.

But, I digress.

My point is that there are very few revolutionary concepts or innovations that can rightly to be said to have changed how people experience the world.  Social networking is one of those concepts and, in that universe, Facebook reigns supreme.  Yet, be honest, when you saw the first trailers for The Social Network, you scoffed at the idea.  We all did.  Facebook is, well, Facebook.  It's the thing kids spend way too much time on and the thing that adults claim they only use for a specific reason (to talk to their siblings, friends from home, etc.), but that they really use to look up the people they hated in high school to see how crappy their lives turned out. 

How compelling could a movie about Facebook be?  If you saw all the stars in title of this blog post, you basically know my answer to that question. 

Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and scripted by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing), The Social Network manages to make high drama out of intellectual property disputes, computer coding, and college-geek friendships.  That alone would be worthy of praise, but the movie is more than that.  It also manages to encapsulate the current state of our culture -- the isolated narcissism of lives lived and displayed online.  While it'd likely be a stretch to say that this will be considered the best film of the decade, I think this movie may come to define the decade...if that makes any sense. 

I won't go into too much detail about the story, you can get that anywhere at this point.  But, to summarize, the movie tells the story of Facebook via the conflicting accounts in depositions taken for two lawsuits.  I don't know how much of the movie is true.  Quite frankly, it appears that the filmmakers didn't know either. From what I've read, most of the script is taken directly from the depositions, and that's kind of the way it plays out.  In sort of Rashomon-like fashion, it tells the story through different points of view and, where the accounts are different, the characters disagree about what happened.  Trust me, it works. 

The defendant in both lawsuits is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who exhibits both ferocious intensity and subtle vulnerability in the role.  This is a difficult performance in that there's nothing in the story or the dialogue that makes Zuckerberg sympathetic, it's all in Eisenberg's performance, the looks of hurt and regret as his actions are recounted before him.  It's obvious the movie wants you to believe that Zuckerberg feels sorry for the things he's done.  It wants you to believe that, despite all the crap he pulls, he's really a good person.  But it has enough respect for the audience to assume that it'll be able to pick up on that as it runs it's course.

The first lawsuit was brought by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, twin brothers who claimed that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them.  While their original idea and Facebook seem different enough, the case was eventually settled for $65 million.  And, if one were to believe the Winklevi's (that's what Mark calls them) account, they had a pretty reasonable beef with Zuckerberg.

The second lawsuit is really the heart of the story.  It involves Zuckerberg and his former best friend, Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield.  In the beginning, Zuckerberg was the brains behind Facebook and Saverin was the money.  They agreed to share the profits and to work together to get the site up and running.  However, when Sean Parker -- the dude behind Napster -- enters the picture, he shows Mark a glimpse of a world where the geeks are kings and the suits can suck it.  Eduardo, who wants to take Facebook down a more traditional route to success, soon finds himself on the outside looking in.  Parker is played by Justin Timberlake in a revelatory performance that shows he has a future in acting beyond being the best host of SNL in recent years.  Both Garfield and Timberlake are outstanding in roles that end up being the two opposite poles playing tug-of-war with Zuckerberg's soul and the future of Facebook. 

All in all, this is simply a beautiful movie.  Wonderfully acted and superbly written.  The script is pure dynamite wrapped in solid gold.  Honestly, I can't imagine another film walking away with the Adapted Screenplay Oscar this year (the movie is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires).  I think both Garfield and Timberlake will be factors in the Best Supporting Actor race.  Eisenberg's performance might be too understated to get that kind of attention, but it is no less deserving.  I will flat out guarantee Best Picture and Best Director nominations here and now, it's not even worth debating.

Go see this movie.  And then talk about it on Facebook. 

For the record, I'm fully aware of the overall sloppiness of this review.  Cut me some slack, it's been awhile.