Iconic

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2011)

When Mark Zuckerberg's friend Eduardo pointedly put forwards his point to Mr. Zuckerberg, while testifying for his claims of corporate embezzlement by Mr. Zuckerberg, that he was his only friend and that his facebook friend's list are worthless, you realize the time's that we live in; where each one of us has created a virtual world for ourselves to satisfy our social needs. We have an apparent friends list of over 200 to 400 friends, but fail to realize we are sitting in our room all alone. These are the fine intimate scenes and moments in the movie 'The Social Network ', that makes you feel that this has got something to do with how you lead your life is what makes this movie an iconic movie of the first decade of the 21st century.
Directed by the always underrated Mr. David Fincher of 'Fight Club', 'Seven', 'Zodiac' and 'The curious case of Benjamin Button'; this is the movie that should fetch him an Oscar and for everyone involved with this movie. The Social Network relives the story of the creation of a website and company, which defines this generation, from a college dorm room. The controversial natures of its creation notwithstanding, the movie without taking sides, tells the tale honestly and with great compose. The controversial co-founder of Facebook and the main protagonist character of the movie Mark Zuckerberg played by Jesse Eisenberg, seems to have his own story to tell about friendship, which is ironic since he is more or less controlling the social lives of millions of people. As a Harvard under graduate student, Mark was on the sidelines of the Harvard's social scene, when he decides to do something substantial to get attention, after his girlfriend breaks up with him. His little website about comparing woman's face with each other draws lot of attention and a suspension; but also leads him to the Winklevoss twins who have an idea of a social networking site (exclusive for people with mailing ID of harward.edu). Till that step, things are smooth, but soon takes the turn to controversial, with each side having its own versions of the story of a time in their lives that would change social networking forever. As Mr. Zuckerberg went on to create the facebook along with his other roommates, he starts grabbing attention from girls who normally would ignore him. But as he expands his website to other colleges, the website grabs the attention of Napster founder and recently bankrupted Sean Parker, who takes facebook to a new level and isolates Mark from his best friend and co-founder of facebook Eduardo who is a business major and had made the early investments for the website. What we see in the movie is the side by side hearings of two lawsuits against Mr. Zuckerberg. One from the Winklevoss twins for stealing their 'idea' and another from Mark's former best friend Eduardo for deceitful dilution of Eduardo's business share in the company. The director pitches the story towards the audience without judgment against any individual.
The razor sharp dialogues of the screenplay are used to pull the audiences in the conversation between characters that are sometimes highly technical but thanks to writer Aaron Sorkin not out of reach of the general public. The great casting cannot be described in any more way, except giving a standout mention to Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg. In times of heartbreaks he made a generation felt his angst and in times of defending himself he let the world sympathize, feel he was a cheat as well as admire his genius.
Speaking about how this generation felt about Mark Zuckerberg's portrayal in the film, it is very much felt it reflected something more to them than the older generation. His was a story of great entrepreneur success in this capitalist world. A socially viable invention that is of some need to all and still all what it is to him is a business, a commanding position that a generation craves to be at this age (and also to be the youngest billionaire in the world). That he treated women like farm animals (or the movie as a whole treated women like meat) meant nothing to the audience. He found success in this dog eat dog world and is sitting on top of the pile. His success made him friendless (at least in the movie) was not a matter of concern since last check his facebook page has 2,912,375 friends. And as in the final moments of the movie, as Mark sits in front of his laptop while sending a friend's request to a special long lost girl and as he sits through clicking the refresh button, waiting for a reply to the request; it defines a generation that is including Mark is waiting for one thing in society, acceptance.