No-one owns ideas

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2011)

This is an intriguing movie, still fresh in my mind despite having seen it some weeks ago. I was surprised at the "warts and all" portrayal of Facebook's putative founder Mark Zuckerberg, who, being now seriously rich, can afford the very best defamation lawyers. A good alternative title would have been "Citizen Zuckerberg" though he apparently still lives in a nondescript suburban house and drives an old car.
Several points stand out. First the film makers have rather ingeniously used as a framing device two separate court cases dealing with who really invented Facebook, the social networking site, which I am happy to say I do not belong to. Second, Jessie Eisenberg's performance as Zuckerberg is uncanny. It may or may not be true to life but it is absolutely convincing. His Zuckerberg is either afflicted with Asberger's syndrome or else is seriously weird, yet somehow we connect with him. Third, his opponents in one of the cases are the egregious Winklevoss twins, two of a vanishing breed – handsome rich WASP boofheads with an unshakable belief in their entitlement to privilege. They are also now seriously rich, though just a few days ago they lost an attempt in the Federal Court of Appeals to overturn their 2008 settlement with Zuckerberg. They are played by the same actor (Armie Hammer) who puts in two seamless performances. Fourth, Zuckerberg's treatment of his collaborator Eduardo Saverin, which leads to the other set of legal proceedings, is almost beyond belief. Fifth, all the litigation seems to be about a property right which does not exist, namely the ownership of ideas, though the lawyers try to dress it up by inventing contractual rights of doubtful provenance.
As a film, however, this one works very well. The supercharged and chilly atmosphere at Harvard College, where the super-bright slug it out with each other and the super-rich is superbly realized. You may have allies, but no real friends. This writer has some experience of the law school at Harvard and it all rings true. I'm not sure the origin of Facebook can be put down to Zuckerberg taking revenge on the girl who dumped him; Facebook was one of those things whose time had come, though no-one realized its full potential at the time. The Winklevosses, snobs that they were, saw it as a Harvard only site, while Zuckerberg thought the Ivy League colleges were about the total market, though of course he soon discovered the world was his oyster.