The Social Network

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2010)

Being a member of Facebook myself, it was right that I should see the film about the creation of it, from Oscar winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) and Golden Globe winning, and Oscar and BAFTA nominated director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Basically on an Autumn night in 2003, nineteen year old Harvard student and computer genius Mark Zuckerberg (Zombieland's Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Jesse Eisenberg) spends most of his time in the virtual world. He invented a little website in his school called "Facemash" where people are given a choice of two faces to vote which of the two is the hottest, and this rapidly has thousands of hits. The school authorities have a word with Mark about it, but his high hitting website gets the attention of Silicon Valley's Winklevoss twins Tyler and Cameron (both Armie Hammer) who want his help in creating a new big website. Mark is initially up for the idea, but this meeting with the twins only fuels his ideas for his own big website, a social networking website for the school called "The Facebook" to make friends, add personal information (including relationship status), exchange messages, spread your opinions and much more. With the funding of Eduardo Saverin (BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Andrew Garfield, who I knew was replacing Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man), the website is officially put online in 2004, and very quickly it becomes a big talking point in the school. With the high hits Mark and Eduardo decide to pass the website to a few other schools, and the attention increases more than anyone would have thought, even getting the attention of Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). Sean is offering to make "The Facebook", shortened to "Facebook", even bigger, turning it into an official worldwide social network earning not just profiles, but big money. Of course the financial success of Facebook has a problem in the form of the Winklevoss twins, who are campaigning with the law against Mark, claiming that he stole their idea, with emails and phone calls as evidence. Eduardo also filed a lawsuit for reducing his share in the company, in the end, Eduardo does get a good settlement and the credit he deserves as co-creator of Facebook, and the twins didn't get what they want, and Zuckerberg continues his success. Also starring Joseph Mazzello as Dustin Moskovitz, Rooney Mara as Erica Albright, Rashida Jones as Marylin Delpy, Brenda Song as Christy Lee, Max Minghella as Divya Narendra, Patrick Mapel as Chris Hughes and John Getz as Sy. Since the creation in 2003 and official launch in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg has become the youngest billionaire in history, and deservedly so, it is nice to be seeing a film about really recent and global news, and about a phenomena that has changed the world of knowledge and socialising. Eisenberg plays the young Zuckerberg really well, the supporting cast, especially Garfield and Timberlake are great as well, the direction is really focused, and the script is fantastically crafted with dazzling wordplay and interesting subjects of loyalty and greed. I could just about follow the legal lawsuit stuff, and for me it was most interesting to see how Facebook and all its components were created and became a technological advancement, first time I watched this I admit I thought it perhaps overrated, but having seen it properly it is indeed a defining film for it era, a terrific biographical drama. It won the Oscars for Best Editing, Best Music for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing, it won the BAFTAs for Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Film, and it won the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Original Score and Best Screenplay - Motion Picture. Very good!