Fincher Proves He Can Make a Great Movie About Anything, Including Facebook

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2011)

I had serious doubts when I heard there would be a movie based on the creation of popular social network Facebook. What could possibly be interesting enough to devote an entire film to a website where people routinely post pictures of their meals, play hundreds of crappy games, and stalk each other's every move? Well if there's one thing I should've learned by now, it's never doubt director David Fincher. Fincher's immense talent coupled with the sharp writing of Aaron Sorkin combine to bring us one of the best films of 2010. Based on the biography "The Accidental Billionaires", the film tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, an antagonistic genius who finds inspiration in a drunken night of retaliatory hacking/blogging and a subsequent pitch from classmates for a new social networking website. He focuses his inspiration, along with funding from his best (and only, really) friend Eduardo Saverin, creates Facebook and watches it explode in popularity across the world. The story is framed within depositions for two lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg, one from Saverin and the other from his classmates that accuse Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.
Fincher's movie is a slick, fast-paced story that immediately grabs your attention from the opening scene, with Zuckerberg's high speed rant to his girlfriend over final clubs and standing out in a college full of geniuses. Right away, we know from his dismissive attitude and his arrogance that Zuckerberg is not a good guy, and we see over the course of the next two hours how self-centered he really is. I'd thought Jesse Eisenberg was great in ZOMBIELAND and he proves he's more than just the "new Michael Cera" with his excellence as Mark Zuckerberg. He helps turn Zuckerberg into a complex character; in the DVD commentary, Fincher notes that it wasn't meant to be the breakup with his girlfriend that drove him to create Facebook as a means of impressing her, showing her why she should be with him. But to me, that's exactly how the movie plays out: Zuckerberg is hurt when his girlfriend leaves him and everything he does for the rest of the film is merely an attempt to regain her attention and show her what he's become.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK was my choice for Best Picture this past Oscar season and I was sad to see it lose. Along with TOY STORY 3, this was one of the top movies of 2010. It came as a major surprise and it blew me away. The cast was fantastic; even Justin Timberlake continues to prove he has strength as a legitimate actor (for further proof, see BLACK SNAKE MOAN). Andrew Garfield was great as Zuckerberg's former best friend, Eduardo Saverin, and I'll be curious to see how his career progresses after such a high profile film. Finally, we have Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's award-winning score for the film: a sharp synthetic sound that feels at home in a Fincher film and gives it a familiar feel. This film is wonderful; how accurate it was to actual events, I couldn't tell you. As a story playing out on the big screen, I loved it. I'm sure there are people out there who won't have an interest in seeing a movie about the creation of a social networking website, but it's a lot more than that and I hope most people will give it a chance to surprise them, as it had me.