Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the dawn of human disconnection

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2011)

Though it has brought the human race together, the Internet has one flaw: the human factor. People talk (or nowadays text) each other, but don't necessarily understand each other, and that's the point of "The Social Network", a slightly fictional account of the creation of the ubiquitous network website, Facebook. It's a two-hour hammer to the gut, and no bandage will stop the bleeding.
When dumped by his girlfriend (Rooney Mara of the "Elm Street" relaunch) for making an unintentionally rude comment, the brilliant but socially awkward Harvard University soph Mark Zuckerberg (always brilliant Jesse Eisenberg of "Zombieland" and "Adventureland") delivers drunken e-vengeance via a blog and a comparison contest of the university's distaff students, earning their animosity, but he earns XY fans, particularly uber jock sibs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Arnie Hammer doing a digital double job) and their token minority chum Divya Narenda (Max Mighella of "Art Schoo Confidential") who approach Mark to engineer their student-based networking site.
Mark's more ambitious, possibly more subversive since the aforementioned three never gave him the time of day, pre-e-vengeance; he creates "the Facebook" with financial backup from roomie Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield of "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" ). The site goes wide, turning Mark and Eduardo into fringe celebs and attracting the attention of Napster's co-framer, Sean Parker (a shady Justin Timberlake). However, Mark's eccentricness and Eduardo's traditional business sense collide, making a friendship unravel.
Adapting Ben Mezrick's "The Accidental Billionaires", samurai scribe Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing", "Studio 60", "A Few Good Men" and a bit part here as an executive) and zeitgeist helmer David Fincher ("Seven", "Fight Club", "Zodiac") don't concentrate as the genesis of Facebook, but the destruction of human connection by its' existence, and the victims/perpetrators are the people who forget their humanity on the success trail. It's obvious through the film's flashbacks intertwined with legal conflicts. Fincher was so impressed with Sorkin's sharp script, he left it untouched, let alone permitted the writer to be involved in the production, a rarity in the director-centric venue of feature films.
No character here is neither good nor bad but mixed in the road to success. Having a heavy role, Eisenberg breaks out of the "second-rate Michael Cera" label, being smart, idiosyncratic and unconventionally cruel; he loses interest in a court testimony, vexing the Winkleloss' legal eagle (David Selby of "The Supercops" and "Rich Kids"). Garfield reps morality here, but gets swallowed into the abyss, especially when having a paranoid, "wired" girlfriend (Disney sitcom stock actress Brenda Song).
Timberlake, just like in "Southland Tales" and "Alpha Dog" has a lot of acting chops as the opportunistic Parker; all he needs is a straw hat, a white-colored suit, a mustache and a devil horns! As twins, Hammer (some guest spots on the horror comedy series "Reaper") embodies the average alpha male (times two) who gets everything without working for it, but gets karma this time and is cartoon fussy about it. Though she has a few scenes, Rashida Jones ("Parks and Recreation"; daughter of the legendary music producer/composer Quincy Jones) is eye-wink perfect when giving good moral and legal advice to Mark as one of his legal eagles. The electronic main tone by neo-rocker Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross perfectly reflects the coldness of technology.
The real Mark Zuckerberg isn't an expletive (he's been philanthropic of late) mentioned in the film but neither is the fictional, who's forced to be one because it's a dog-eat-dog world. Sorkin and Fincher expertly show that. The tragedy is technology has evolved, but humanity has a long way to go.