I know people who actually think 'Fight Club' is a movie about fighting. Sadly, there are even more oblivious individuals who think 'The Social Network' is about Facebook. While I can't judge people for not liking David Fincher's latest directorial effort (he also directed 'Fight Club'), I must sympathize for those who didn't catch that it was actually a social commentary as well as a 'Citizen Kane'-style tragedy. A lot of people, including some incompetent film critics, stated that there wasn't any reason people should even care about this story, but I have to disagree, especially since people seemed to care about 'The Blind Side,' which was more conservative propaganda than it was a factual or realistic recollection of 'true events.'
I like to wonder how much sense 'The Social Network' would make had it been released twenty years ago. Obviously the course of history would not permit such a thing, as this is mostly a retelling of historical events that occurred over the past decade, but just imagine if this story were as fictional as 'Fight Club.' Doing so keeps you from seeing this as a biopic of computer prodigy Mark Zuckerberg, although the film really isn't much of that already. In fact, it is a story that is told from different perspectives, at different time frames, at such a pace that signifies how quickly the Facebook website became a worldwide phenomenon. Zuckerberg is not a historical figure in 'The Social Network' in the same sense that Johnny Cash was in 'Walk the Line.' Instead, Fincher adds so much theatricality to the story that it is sometimes hard to see it as a historical event, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. For it to be a bad thing, we could look at 'The Blind Side' again, but I like to forget about that. Fincher takes history and makes it something we can be entertained by, although some people would not consider an unlikeable character such as Zuckerberg all that entertaining.
There isn't much to give away about the story unless you don't know much about what really happened, but if you didn't already know, Mark Zuckerberg isn't much of a "people person." I don't know the guy personally, I've only seen videos and heard things, and Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of him is nothing less than spot-on, although I know the movie version of Zuckerberg isn't as much of a dick as the real one. The film’s depiction of the genius almost makes it seem as if he has Asperger syndrome, but really he’s just an anti-social nerd. It’s about time, too, that nerds were depicted on screen as the unsociable and inconsiderate beings that they really are, rather than these cute heroes inspired by John Hughes’ films (no disrespect for Hughes).
The film loosely follows Harvard student/tech-prodigy Mark Zuckerberg (by this I mean it switches perspectives) as he creates Facebook and becomes the youngest billionaire in history, while people sue him left and right for, more or less, screwing them over. I won’t go too much into detail of the chain of events, because more than likely you know the gist of them, and if you don’t it’s not really relevant to the story’s significance. Amongst these events the movie revolves around Zuckerberg’s reluctant failure to realize how much his actions impact others, moving back and forth through meetings with lawyers, parties, and intense events from the “offices” of Facebook, all of which are elevated by the amazing soundtrack from Trent Reznor.
Perhaps the unlikability of the characters in 'The Social Network' could be considered its biggest flaw, although I don't like to see it that way. Saying such a thing would mean that Shakespeare's 'Richard III' or Stanley Kubrick's 'Clockwork Orange' weren't masterpieces, and I really don’t have the time for such blasphemous accusations. Is 'The Social Network' a masterpiece then? A lot of people will say no, and although I am a big fan of David Fincher's work, I'm not being biased when I say it is indeed a masterpiece. Watching Zuckerberg fail to keep one friend throughout the movie was enough for me to realize what this movie is really about, and that is what Facebook says about our society today, which Fincher elaborates on extremely well with the help of Aaron Sorkin’s masterful script. In human nature resides the will to connect with others and know every little detail about everyone we know, and Facebook represents the inevitability that this would soon take over society altogether. As the film analyzes every little detail, we get to see everything about Facebook’s history that’s worth knowing, regardless of whether or not we really want to know it. It’s then that we realize that the true strength of ‘The Social Network’ is its irony. An anti-social genius with only one real friend develops the most efficient method of communicating with others. This same genius manages to lose his one friend and get more money than he could ever want. The ending is probably the most ironic moment of them all, but I’m not going to spoil it.
I won’t say that I liked ‘The Social Network’ as much as ‘Fight Club,’ ‘Seven’ or ‘Benjamin Button,’ but it is definitely Fincher’s most impressive film yet. The acting is great, particularly from Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and even Justin Timberlake (who plays Sean Parker, the creator of Napster). The direction is wonderful, especially so during a rowing competition that I doubt any other director could make as entertaining. The college experience is somewhat exaggerated, but still more realistic than most other college films. The screenplay is beyond exceptional, only proving how great Fincher can work with his material. This is indeed a film that ingeniously says as much about society today as ‘Fight Club’ did ten years ago, although, like I said before, a lot of people won’t see this because they can’t see beyond the idea of this being a “Facebook movie.” Along with this year’s ‘Inception’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,’ ‘The Social Network’ signifies the rise of a somewhat new style of filmmaking that includes fast-paced, elaborate scripts which focus on different perspectives of one story. With these different perspectives, we see how Zuckerberg not only changed the lives of the people around him, but the privacy of the world altogether, as it was all unintentional. I imagine this will get a lot of Oscar nominations, and although I can’t guarantee it will win all of them, I can guarantee it will be as big a threat to other films as Zuckerberg himself was to “Myspace” Tom.
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