Please stop making movies about j*rks!!

Rating: 5/10 (3 October 2010)

I wasn't planning on seeing The Social Network. I love Alien 3, was blown away along with everyone else by Fight Club when I was younger and now find it to be nostalgic at best, absolutely hated the "adaptation" of Benjamin Button, and haven't really paid too much attention to Fincher otherwise. I also don't have a Facebook page and haven't good things to say about Eisenberg.
But, everyone else seems to be digging the film, and Aaron Sorkin is one heck of a writer, so I thought I'd give it a go.
The film itself was average in quality. No great highs and no great lows, in my humble opinion.
The biggest issue for me, though, is more of a slippery slope I've been noticing as of late of movies such as this coming out, all about a slew of j**ks (or "a***oles," as the Network itself would claim) who no one would ever care about.
Back in the day, it was all about the underdog, the Brando schmo scratching at himself and wearing a dirty white T-shirt. It seems today, though, the new "underdog" is really just some selfish bozo whose only means of being empathetic, according to the filmmakers, is that he/she might be a computer nerd or short or not so good-looking. As though that's enough to make us care about him/her?
The specific problem for me with The Social Network is that none of the characters deserve any empathy (or even sympathy) at all. The main character--whether the real Mark Z. is or not--is a total narcissistic b***ard who doesn't seem to even want anything or have any real goals aside from pi**ing off his ex-girlfriend with whom he seems to have no real chemistry or intimacy in the first place. Just because he continues stalking her doesn't mean he cares about her; I had trouble even believing that he would care that much about her anyway, considering the inhibited/introverted solipsist the movie made him out to be.
Then we have his best friend (or "ex-best friend") who was probably the only slightly sympathetic character in the film (which in this case is like being Valedictorian in summer school). But, even he seems to be selfish, childish, and immature throughout, using his family's money as a means of making or breaking friendships throughout the movie.
Everyone else in the film seems to be "even bigger" j*rks than the character of Mark Z., going around trying to intimidate their enemies and each other without really accomplishing anything or, again, wanting anything real except for "revenge."
It's difficult watching a movie like this where there's no one to latch on to emotionally. Justin Timberlake was surprisingly charismatic and charming throughout the movie, but as much as I wanted to like at least him--at least one character in the film--his character was also so incredibly despicable and conniving (not to mention somehow very wealthy despite everyone saying he had no money anymore) that it became impossible. I guess he was supposed to be the antagonist? The villain to the other villain(s)?
Another issue with this kind of slipshod writing and filmmaking is that we're not granted any semblance of three-dimensionality or humanity that can lend itself to realism. Jesse Eisenberg might never smile (and he never seems to in movies or interviews alike), but I'm sure Mark Z. does. In fact, whenever I see that fellow in an interview or photo, he seems to be smiling quite bright. Maybe it's just now that he has $25b? But, come on. "Cheer up, Charley! Give us a smile!"
An easy fix to this could have been involving characters from Mark's actual life to show the humane and more complicated side of his persona. His parents, for example. Where were his parents? He was 19 during all of this, a minor. His parents could have been injected into the movie to give a fresh and more complicated perspective of the guy, to have them maybe speak with him and with each other about the scared boy inside the angry robot the movie makes him out to be. Or his real-life girlfriend who was there in those early days, perhaps making a composite of this girl and the one-dimensional "Erica" of the extant film. A girlfriend who stands by him, who caresses him and lets US in on the "real" Mark who SHE sees, as opposed to, again, the robot the movie makes him out to be.
In the end, Mark Z.'s character was just as bad a guy and just as hypocritical as the biggest blonde-haired, Adonis bully fratboy character you might find in an 80's teen movie. Just because he happens to be a "nerd" (?) doesn't make him Louis Skulnick.
Charles Foster Kane wanted the innocence of his youth and craved that time in his life before he became Hearst. And this is exactly what makes him more like "us," more of a character with whom we can empathize, regardless of how venal he becomes over time. Mark Z. just wants to pi*s off an ex-girlfriend who, again, I don't even really believe he gives that much of a d**n about anyway. When there's nothing to care about in a main character, a movie is failing. When there's no characters to care about at all, a movie FAILS.
Hollywood: please take a memo! You can't combine Revenge of the Nerds with Varsity Blues anymore! J*rks will always be j*rks no matter if they're computer nerds, alienated little eight-year-olds, Southern working moms, pregnant teenagers, or fat. Work a little harder to create real, three-dimensional characters we can care about. There's always something there; it's just a matter of finding it.