Even after 20 viewings I'm still not sick of this film yet!! A modern masterpiece most definitely!!

Rating: 10/10 (24 May 2012)

I've already seen this film 20 times now and I think it's one of the best written American films in years. The last film from America that so impressed me with its screenplay, dialog and acting was Robert Redford's sadly under-rated film QUIZ SHOW.
Frankly, I'm really surprised at how much I like this film, because I wasn't expecting to like it at all, as I am not a great fan of Facebook. It's a generation thing I think. However, I overcame my initial prejudices and let the film happen to me and I was well-rewarded on many levels.
Jesse Eisenberg's performance was spot on and he underplayed his performance brilliantly. In the film, Jesse is either manic (as in the clever rapid-fire dialog opening scene) or sullen and distracted in the "court room" interrogation scenes. He was so good it took me awhile to realize that this was acting on a new level.
That he missed out on an Oscar to Colin Firth's hammy turn in THE KING'S SPEECH, is absolutely criminal, but with Colin's performance (enjoyable though it is I suppose), you are always aware that Colin is "acting", but with Jesse, he totally makes you believe that he's the character he's playing. What a good actor he is. He has plenty of time to get an Oscar I suppose, but it still would have been good to see him at least be rewarded for his work here.
Having seen the film so many times now, I am really being made aware of its brilliance. Just listening to the duologue is priceless. I don't mind a lot of talk in films as long as the actors have something interesting to say and say it in an interesting way, which they all do in this film.
A read of Ben Mezrich's original work, THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES is a good help to understanding the film as well.
But according to a recent story in Brazillian money magazine there's hardly a shred of truth in this film, but, do you know what? I don't really care. It's such a good story as presented with believable characters and riveting dialog that this semi-fictionalized version suits me just fine! we will probably never know the real truth as to who really created Facebook anyway. More than one person was directly and indirectly involved for sure.
No man is an island. Zuckerberg certainly seems to need his friend Eduardo's help with algorithms in the beginning of the story, so maybe he's not that brilliant a computer programmer. He also seems to rely totally on Dustin, his own programmer (played by the always dependable actor, Joseph Mazello in another great scene-stealing performance).
Zuckerberg is supposed to be writing thousands of lines of programing, but we hardly ever see him doing any programming. And it's Dustin who gives him the reason that Facebook needs to be around when he quizzes Mark about the relationship status of one of the girls in Mark's Art Hitory class.
So Mark doesn't do everything alone, even though he's a loner, he still needs people around him to help get Facebook off the ground and onto people's computers.
And the ending of the film pretty much sums any problems you might have regarding who the true inventor of Facebook is: there is still some doubt about who started Facebook if Zuckerberg had to pay millions of dollar out-of-court settlements to people like Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra. They wouldn't be paid anything if they hadn't contributed anything to Facebook one way or another would they? The website they started sounds remarkably similar to Mark's Facebook site. Did he borrow it and use his own code and Eduado's algorithms? We'll never know.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a marvelous, savvy film of its time, and it's a pity that it didn't pick up the Best Film Oscar, as well as some acting Oscars for Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake.
But we know by now how reluctant the Oscar voters are to give awards to truly deserving winners.
But at least the film won awards for its fantastic screenplay, sublime and technically brilliant Film Editing and its pulsating and unusual Music Score. We have to be thankful to the academy for that at least.
This film is a great experience. Perhaps if you didn't like or understand it, you need to watch it a few times as the three different versions of what happened (plus your own theories of what might have happened) take a while to digest and hit home as each new piece of evidence and hearsay make themselves known as the film progresses.
And I'm going to keep watching this film as many times as I can.
Even after 20 viewings I'm still not sick of it yet!! A modern masterpiece most definitely.