Austin Layne likes this

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 2010)

"A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars." Sean Parker's statement sets a mood for the battleground that is the Social Network. A film that depicts the bitter battle between the simultaneously brilliant and conceded Mark Zuckerberg, and practically everyone else who was involved with the invention of Facebook. But not only does the statement give a summation of the movie's core, it gives a summation of capitalist U.S. culture, as does the rest of the movie. Think about it as you watch; the alcohol swilling Harvard rich kids are eerily familiar to the Wall Street royalty who really rule this country. Is the destruction of Mark Zuckeberg's relationship with his best friend do to a business venture and greediness meant to parallel the collapse of the economy due to the continuous push of businessman for more money? I think so.
But that is another essay. Let us now speak of the other fantastic aspects of this film: Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake without a doubt give the best performances of the movie. I would like to shed special light on Jesse Eisenberg who plays a character that is much more than the nice guy geek he usually portrays. Here he plays a man who is drenched in his own configuration of loneliness, alienation, despair, and pessimism, a man who suffers from an over-inflated ego, who despite being brilliant cannot advance past the point of a computer screen. The character of Mark Zuckerberg is much darker than the role Jesse Eisenberg took on in The Squid and the Whale, who was almost as irredeemable, but eventually proves to be likable. The Mark Zuckerberg within The Social Network is entirely irredeemable, unlikable, but Jesse Eisenberg's amazing talent saves him from being unwatchable, and he can at times even be charming.
Justin Timberlake gives perhaps the best performance of his acting career, playing Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster who sleazily snuck onto the Facebook bandwagon, in every scene whispering things into the ear of Mark Zuckerberg, almost in an allusion to the Serpent of Genesis, causing the change in Adam and Eve that caused their fall from grace. This all could've been overly obvious, but the charm Justin Timberlake infuses the character with makes it very subtle, and much more ambiguous as to whether it's even there or not.
All in all, I believe The Social Network to be the satire of the decade, a title I previously rewarded to There Will Be Blood. The only difference for me is that at time There Will Be Blood can be unwatchable or hard to watch for some people, and seem like five hours instead of two and a half. The Social Network is infinitely watchable and entertaining, something that There Will Be Blood just isn't.