The Social Network: A Fitting Modern Treatment

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2011)

A movie about Facebook? A movie about Facebook?! Not even the bottom of the barrel could be so lined with mawkish garbage as this, a film following the foundation of a bloody website. Have they no better ideas? My thoughts exactly, dear reader. My thoughts exactly.
Dumped by his girlfriend, who finally recognises his apparently incurable horridness, Mark Zuckerberg slanders her on the internet and creates a website for comparing the attractiveness of female Harvard students. The success of this and the invitation to programme a Harvard-exclusive online social network combine in the mind of the professed genius to create what would become Facebook, and the eventual pair of lawsuits that would turn up along the way.
Like just about everyone else, I was incredibly sceptical toward such an idea as a Facebook movie: surely a ridiculous concept for any film. The involvement of well-liked screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and acclaimed director David Fincher seemed to win a great deal of sceptics over to the premise, yet I remained unchanged, dismissing it as uninteresting and silly. A website's success warrants a film now? Pfft... The scene which opens the film is the one in which Zuckerberg is dumped, the particular posterior-based vulgarity applied by the departing girlfriend the general label hung upon him by many of the film's characters. Jesse Eisenberg portrays Zuckerberg, combining the flashy sarcasm of Sorkin's dialogue with his own cynical glances of self-assumed intellectual superiority to create a character that we never quite get to like. His sneering put-downs alienate us as they do their recipients, preventing all from ever really sympathising with the computer maverick. And so too it should be, the protagonist—if even that title can rightly be applied to him—portrayed as largely deserving of the general disdain held by most toward him. The narrative is structured as flashbacks told through two contemporaneous depositions as the now multi-billionaire Zuckerberg is sued by both the proposers of the original website idea and his former best, quite probably only, friend Eduardo Saverin. The reason behind the former suit is evident, the latter initially unknown. Both Zuckerberg and Saverin appear to maintain a cordial respect for each other, never quite making eye contact and each appearing sorry that this is what their friendship has come to. As Saverin, Andrew Garfield is perhaps the film's strongest facet, his performance as the popular guy still faithful to his nerdy friend reaching a splendid climax in the scene wherein we finally learn the reason behind the lawsuit. Eisenberg and Garfield play off each other very well, the tension between them when the latter's character is accepted into a social club greatly desired by the former left to subtlety rather than a more visceral reaction on either part. Throughout the film, the comedy of the script plays a key supportive role, keeping us thoroughly entertained with Sorkin's quick-fire wit. It's not all heavily quotable one-liners, however, the simple story of friendship the film's thematic core. By its finale, as Zuckerberg sits alone in the deposition room, we are left to wonder if his newly amassed multi-billion dollar fortune has really changed anything. Riches, as his ex-girlfriend might argue, do not an asshole unmake. An old and well explored parable it may be, but it is given a fitting modern treatment here.
A movie about Facebook? A movie about Facebook?! No, actually. A movie about friendship, about jealousy, and about the destructive influence of one upon the other. Perhaps the explanation for the somewhat exaggerative praise heaped upon this film lies in the fact that such an initially bizarre idea has—through a well written script and powerful performances—become so much more.