THE SOCIAL NETWORK: The Zenith of Privacy Deprivation

Rating: 3/10 (13 January 2011)

The amount of information about the film THE SOCIAL NETWORK driving it toward being named Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor etc etc etc can only be compared to the global blast of privacy invasion that the topic of the film - FACEBOOK - has caused. The story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, acted with as much flatline self absorption as the character he portrays - a compliment) and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield in the most sensitive, multifaceted performance in the film) and their brainy computer manipulated program that became the ruler of the computer universe is well told. The fact that the idea was 'lifted' from the Winklevoss twins (recreated a la 'The Parent Trap' concept by one actor - Armie Hammer) and Harvard sidekick Divya Narendra (Max Mingella) provides the story driver here: the history of Facebook is told through back and forth sessions at the depositions for law suits alternating with transmission of the incidents of the developmental struggles of the toy. It is story of obsession, of the fragmentation of trust between friends, of the proliferation of a challenging brainy idea into a billions of dollars scheme, and it is a documentation of how the current state of mind of the students to adults feed on gossip and instantaneous information dissemination, the results of which we are only beginning to appreciate as individual privacy becomes a relic.
Ben Mezrich's book 'The Accidental Billionaires' as been transformed to the screen by writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher (Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), and Zodiac (2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). As with his other films Fincher successfully creates an atmosphere that captures the message of his films. Here that atmosphere includes degrading women, drowning dialogue with inordinately loud music on the soundtrack (courtesy Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), maladaptive behavior, and the gradual loss of dignity of those young people who propel this concept of Facebook to success - not the least of which is a study of Napster Pro Sean Parker well played by Justin Timberlake. This is a long, loud, noisy, crude, roller coaster ride of a film that probably is true to the mark as a docudrama and as terrifyingly thought provoking.
Grady Harp