The journey of Mark Zuckerberg's invention and establishment of Facebook

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2014)

College is a time where every student defines him or her self. It's when many people meet their spouse, some of their closest friends, and when they get the degree that turns into a career. For Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg), his time at Harvard has been less about the classes, and more about his time in front of a computer screen, hacking into the school's database and blogging about his life. We first see him infiltrating Harvard's student directory and creating a site where two students' pictures are placed beside each other, and viewers vote on who's "hotter". 22,000 page-views, and many outraged students, later, Zuckerberg is called into the school officials' office, and it is now that we see why he has very little friends. The two friends he does have are Eduardo Saverin (Garfield), the finance genius, and Dustin Moskovitz, a computer programmer like Mark. After witnessing the impressive computer work by Mark, brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss meet with him and propose their idea; a social website featuring student bios, info, and statuses, and they want to call it The Harvard Connection. Mark agrees that he's interested in helping the brothers, and leaves. About 6 weeks later, a new social media site is activated featuring student bios, info, and statuses, and it is called The Facebook. The brothers find this new site, and the conflict of whose site it is, and who deserves the potentially billion-dollar revenue, is launched into action
As an American teen that has been a Facebook account-holder for about 5 years, I was interested in this film. Facebook revolutionized how our society meets and interacts with each other. Coming into this film, I knew two things. 1.) David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, and Curious Case of Benjamin Button) directs it, so I knew that it would be well done 2.) This was the "big break" for both Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, so I was curious to see what made their performances so good I thought that the actors were good in the film, particularly in the case of Andrew Garfield. The only other role I had seen him in was as Spiderman, and this performance was far better. I thought that Jesse Eisenberg did a great job of capturing the quick-thinking and slightly smug Zuckerberg. The story itself is true, and the truth behind the history of this company is quite emotional. This film was nominated for 8 Oscar categories, and it won a trio of them (Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score). My one negative comment is something that I'm still unsure of. In the movie Mark comes off as very egotistical and pretty cutthroat. I'm not sure if this is what the real man is like, or if Eisenberg's performance is what created this impression. In the case of the former, it disappoints me that one of the richest men in America is pompous and conceited.
The run time is exactly 2 hours, but it seems longer than that. While stereotypical college life and the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" do involve sexuality, I found it to be a little too much for my taste. I also found that the film leaves the viewer with the idea that tricking your business partners and friends out of a piece of the company that they helped you create leaves you rich. However, it does show the moral message that you can have billions of dollars, but you may not have many friends, whether in real life or on Facebook.
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