One-part legal drama and one-part dialogue driven standoff; the film is an elegant picture, depicting some less than elegant people, which makes for engrossing viewing.

Rating: 8/10 (29 September 2011)

Usually when characters have their faces illuminated, whilst shot in tight close up, from a light source located just below that of their chin, it is to bring about a certain ghoulish; uncanny; border-line evil sense to proceedings. There is a nightclub-set scene in David Fincher's The Social Network in which two male characters dominate the conversational proceedings between themselves, in doing so, shallow chit-chat with their write-off girlfriends, whom happened to be in the right place at the right time, plays out on occasion. Their faces, filling the frame, are periodically lit up by that of several shades of primary colours located beneath the glass of the tables at which they sit – the acute angle of their positioning causes great flourishes of light which are shed all over their facial features, but done so in a fashion rendering them somewhat frightening. The characters are, of course, shady and approaching despicable – even ghoulish; people about to make a lot of money off a world of young and vulnerable people living in a day and age in which modernity has gone mad; technological advancements are implemented unto us as "must have" accessories, in spite of whether one requires them, and folk are exposed to computerised services allowing them to forge online identities which has, on occasion, led to what people have defined as a sickness.
Welcome to the film about the person, or people, whom helped invent this item and their struggle to cash in on the riches that come with it. They call it Facebook; an online service allowing people to create their own web-pages of personal information, post recent happenings in life and put up all manner of content, complimentary or otherwise - that age-old idea of young people better off being seen and not heard has long since departed. The film is a near-perfect telling of a four-or-so month law suit which reared up over the winter of 2003 and briefly crossed over into 2004; an indelible balancing of several people on two sides of a particular fence in overall reference as to whom began the aforementioned website which took the online world by storm and as to how much in the way of riches either person is entitled to. It is remarkably written, beautifully played and wondrously directed; Fincher chopping back and forth from strand to strand, from equilibrium to equilibrium in the manner that tells us it is a director at the top of his game.
For starters, the pleasure one derives from a film such as The Social Network bears little to the items simmering away at the core of it; one needs to know of Facebook, or indeed possess a Facebook account, in about as much-a capacity as one needs to know an awful lot about agricultural science in order to enjoy Tony Gilroy's 2007 film Michael Clayton: a good thriller is a good thriller, regardless of its subject matter. Jesse Eisenberg plays American Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, a talkative; frizzy haired kid in his early twenties with a room on campus and a tight circle of friends and girlfriends. Eisenberg nails the role with a steely glare and an affecting robot-like demeanour, delivering long passages of cutthroat speech in a cold and precise manner - he reminds us of another coldly blank antagonist, although only really an antagonist supporting proceedings in a world of ever-decaying social-strata, from Fincher's past work; that of Kevin Spacey's John Doe. In terms of framework, we liken him to Gyllenhaal's character from Fincher's 2007 film Zodiac - a lead whom happens upon a coded item, proceeds with it and then gets in deeper than he should have done.
Zuckerberg, on account of being too frank and talkative with a girlfriend one night at a university bar, breaks up with her and lumbers back to his halls, alone, on a dreary Autumn evening. The glumness of his marital situation is encapsulated in the foreboding music motivating proceedings, but brief squirts of pleasant piano keys in amidst it reiterate the germ of a good idea trying to break through out of the scuzzy situation. His superiority, at least over other students of his age; ethnicity and sexuality, is enforced when, inter-cut with his devising of a social networking formulae, we observe numerous other students simultaneously drink; fool around and stand on coffee tables in their underwear - such are the things one gets up to at university.
Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin, a friend and roommate but a later rival for the claim of the benefit payouts; two brothers, these fantastic physical specimens whom row and maintain their build like Zuckerberg is able to think along mathematical lines, are named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, although are both played by Armie Hammer in an instance of flawless duel-acting on the man's behalf. The plot takes care of itself, suffice to say the film cuts back and forth to the ongoing battle over what amount should be paid to whom and how they all came to reach this situation. The film splices between either strand effortlessly, the reality of the fact we are aware of what the situation on the past strand will eventually lead to in no way detrimental to the overall intensity of the drama unfolding overall. The film's indelible manoeuvring of these characters around a chess board of sorts, as loyalties to one and then the other and differing factions are born out of events; what look like betrayals and distrust, is the real joy – the film a mesmerising drama rocketing Fincher away from the spasmodic, pseudo-teary The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and back to a recurring forefront of men wading through decrepit sociological surroundings; battling with themselves as well as the other men of distorted opposites they appear to have more in common with than would like, whom occupy that space with them.