You don't get 500 million friends without making a few enemies

Rating: Null/10 (23 August 2011)

David Fincher, the director who bought you such critically acclaimed films as Fight Club and Se7en has worked with Aaron Sorkin, the writer of West Wing to create the eagerly anticipated Social Network; a film adaptation of the Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaire: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. The result is a fantastically crafted big-budget movie with an all star cast that seems to have generated massive hype and glowing praise. If it was not for the movie's glaring hypocrisy, product placement and severe mischaracterisation this would be the perfect movie. So what is the story behind the world's most frequently visited site and its creator Mark Zuckerberg: the world's youngest billionaire? It starts at Harvard in 2003, where Zuckerberg, the hero of the film, begins to drunkenly hack Harvard's computer system to raid them of all their photos after breaking up with his girlfriend. With the names and photos he creates a website called FaceMash where students can choose the more attractiveness of two people who are compared side by side on screen. This receives twenty-two thousand hits in less than two hours and crashes the University computer system and leads to a disciplinary hearing that results in six months of academic probation. However, this also draws Zuckerberg to the attention of Winklevoss twins who are trying to set up 'The Harvard Connect', a dating site for Harvard students, After initially expressing interest, Zuckerberg never actually contributes and instead goes onto create 'TheFacebook' a social networking system for Harvard students which then, as you all know becomes very popular, very quickly. The Winklevoss twins feel they deserve a slice of the action and much drama, betrayal, greed and lawsuits pursue. The acting throughout the movie is flawless with special mention to Andrew Garfield (who will play Peter Parker in the next Spider Man movie) who delivers a very good performance as Edwardo Saverin the character and friend of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) who 'co- founded', or rather initially funded, Facebook. Justin Timberlake (yes, from the Mickey Mouse club) continues to build up a respectable film resume following decent performances in Alpha Dog and Black Snake Moan with his very likable character Sean Parker; the founder of Napster, Parker is the guy who persuades Mark to take Facebook to California, Silicon Valley So surprisingly a film about Facebook, (that ultimate procrastination tool) seems to be a hit. It is however flawed. It is dramatised history and it is easy to forget that the film has had absolutely no input from Zuckerberg himself and as Andrew Clark of 'The Guardian' stated: 'I'm not sure whether Mark Zuckerberg is a punk, a genius or both. But I won't be seeing the Social Network to find out.' It is obvious that much of the movie is made up of presumptions, exaggerations and straight up fiction. In order for the screenplay to be good it needs heroes and villains and again this is something that has been fictionalised in order to make up a good story. This however can become dangerous when it is dressed up to all be true with real people surrounding real events. It is one thing to create dramatised history with past events such as Elizabeth - The Golden Age or Shakespeare in Love however when it comes to making up events, conversations and actions of living people then there is potential to really tarnish people's names or give praise where it is undeserved. This is perhaps why Zuckerberg expressed regret that there would be a movie made about him during his lifetime. As well as the numerous presumptions, exaggerations and fictional events 'The Social Network' is also awash with product placement. A reoccurring theme in the movie is Mark Zuckerberg's belief that advertising has no place on Facebook, he points out that Facebook is cool and that the users will be stop using Facebook if they believe that it is a marketing tool. This makes it fairly hypocritical that the movie places special attention to brands including Mountain Dew, Polaroid and Sony VAIO computers (perhaps due to Sony Studio's contribution to the production of the movie). The movie also paints a negative picture of the prestigious Harvard University drawing attention to elitist clubs and emotionally bankrupt students. This film is definitely worth watching, not just because everyone will be talking about it, but because it has a great plot with fantastic cinematography and a wonderful score by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. As the film draws to a close, you can't help thinking that aged only twenty-six, Mark Zuckerberg: The youngest billionaire on the planet has a story is far from over.