I'm CEO, bitch
I went to an advanced screening of THE SOCIAL NETWORK tonight so here is a review.
Definitely see it when it comes out! David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are a fantastic combination. The acting is terrific and it has some interesting themes weaved into this great story.
The film opens with a fast-paced break up between Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg and Rooney Mara's Erica. If you're unfamiliar with Aaron Sorkin's dialogue, this scene totally sets the tone and pace of the film. I had never seen Rooney Mara in anything before and only knew her as the girl who won the part in the English remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but she did a great job in her brief role. Erica dumping Mark is what starts this whole thing. Mark goes home and drunkenly writes a lot of mean things about Erica on his Livejournal blog (yeah, they mention LJ). Then he hacks into the school's system to get pictures of a bunch of girls and makes a website for people to choose whose hotter. It ends up crashing the system and Mark gets reprimanded for it, but not before getting the attention of the rich WASP-y Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer, previously seen on Gossip Girl as one of Serena's suitors). They have an idea for a website, kind of like MySpace but exclusive only to people with Harvard emails, and they need a genius programmer like Mark for the job. Mark decides that he can do it better himself so he recruits his best friend, business major Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to start their website together. And we all know happens to that website.
This movie has a lot to say. Not only is it about the phenomenon of social networking and the changing ways that people communicate and relate to each other these days, but it's also about how much society has changed and stayed the same. On one hand, the billionaires of today are nerdy computer geniuses. On the other hand, there's still this desire to get into the oldest, most exclusive clubs that lead to, as Zuckerberg says, 'a better life'. The Winklevoss twins are obviously angry that their idea was taken but you can sense there's a bit of snobbery in their resentment as well. It's not just that Mark Zuckerberg took their idea. It's that he took their idea and became the CEO himself, not just the geeky programmer working for the WASP rich boys. He's suddenly jumped past them in the social hierarchy when all their lives, they were at the top of the pyramid. I mean, they're members of Porcellian, a club so exclusive that they even rejected Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was at Harvard. Truthfully, it seems they're still living in the past where there are unspoken rules between gentlemen while Zuckerberg thinks and acts like a man of the 21st century.
But if the Winklevoss twins exhibit snobbery, then so does Zuckerberg. Not about money or pedigree but about his own intelligence. He's a genius, and like most geniuses, he knows it and won't hesitate to let you know you're not. There's also a price to pay for success. And even if he became a billionaire, did he really end up getting what he wanted? He changed the world with a website for people to stay connected to their friends, and yet along the way, he sacrificed his only friend. Ironic and sad in many ways.
The screenplay is, by most accounts, the star of the film. There's a lot of humor, wit and insight in Aaron Sorkin's script. The structure is reminiscent of Citizen Kane and Rashomon even though the movie itself is not really innovative enough to merit serious comparisons. It's brilliant but it doesn't do anything revelatory. It makes great use of tried and true conventions. Most of the movie is told through depositions in two separate lawsuits against Zuckerberg, though the story is told in sequence. The accounts are told by people who are under oath but how much does that mean? Who knows.
I actually don't have much to say about David Fincher in all this because his style is very toned down and not very evident in this at all. He pretty much lets the screenplay do its job. Although I have to say, the opening titles sequence did make me feel like a serial killer would be jumping out any minute.
As for the acting, Jesse Eisenberg is really fantastic. I ended up finding Mark Zuckerberg much more sympathetic than I expected. He doesn't do the right thing much, but you kind of have to admire someone who has that kind of ambition and drive. He's kind of a mix between Jay Gatsby and Sheldon Cooper, if you can imagine it. The truth is - you can't always be a nice person and become the world's youngest billionaire. Eisenberg plays all of it brilliantly, from Mark's awkward social manners to his jackass tendencies. He's not a monster. He's a guy who wanted to make something for himself and did whatever he had to do for it. If he gets a Best Actor nomination, I certainly won't complain. Justin Timerblake does a nice job and he's always had a talent for comedy, though the performance is hardly award-worthy. Armie Hammer as the Winklevoss twins was also quite good. They got a lot of laughs from the audience.
The other great performance of the film is Andrew Garfield, playing the Jed Leland to Eisenberg's Charles Foster Kane. Eduardo is Mark's best and only friend. Like with many best friends, there's loyalty but also a bit of rivalry. Eduardo is a little more gifted in the social arena and one particular distinction becomes a point of conflict between him and Mark. Eduardo is sensible and cautious but that ends up costing him dearly as he starts to lose his influence on Mark to Napster founder and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). Without Garfield to make Eduardo a sympathetic character, the movie would have no heart. The deterioration of this friendship is perhaps the only emotionally resonant aspect of the film cause really, this all started with two best friends in college. It eventually becomes a multi-million dollar lawsuit between ex-best friends.
A few points that I felt could have been stronger - it did feel like, when the movie was over, that there could've been a little more conclusion to certain things. But the final scene is pretty brilliant. The other thing is the overall absence or bad handling of female characters. It's understandable that there just aren't many women involved in this story, but I didn't really see the need to make Christy (Brenda Song), Eduardo's groupie turned girlfriend, into such a nutjob. Rashida Jones was barely in the movie and had nothing much to do. Honestly, the most memorable female character was Rooney Mara's Erica because she actually affected the plot in some way (even if it was passively).
I don't know if this will win Best Picture, but it kind of feels like a Best Picture winner to me. It has the potential to be a real box office success too. The audience at the screening totally ate it up and there was a nice applause at the end (although to be fair, this screening was in Silicon Valley). The film got a lot of laughs but I wonder if the lack of a real 'hero' will prevent people from really connecting with it. In fact, I think this could easily go Comedy at the Golden Globes. While it does have one major dramatic scene, it's mostly a lot of witty lines and fast dialogue. It's probably a shoe-in for Adapted Screenplay. I wouldn't call it the "movie of the decade" but I can't disagree that it certainly defines the decade.