Rich Dialog and Angular Characters Fuel a Wild Intellectual Expedition

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2012)

David Fincher's take on the men behind a social networking juggernaut is an ensnaring riff on adolescent genius, intellectual property, misplaced loyalty and the blurred line between inspiration and plagiarism. Jesse Eisenberg is magnetic as the quick-lipped, scorned, socially acidic orchestrator Mark Zuckerberg; armed with both a fiery stockade of dialog and a vibrant crew of supporting actors to fire it at, he never wants for the right words, nor the perfect target, for an occasion. Eisenberg is especially effective in the dry, serious legal hearings he's subjected to throughout the plot, where he's most at liberty to cut to the quick with a pointed jape or toy with the formulaic arguments of a prosecutor. Sufficiently technical without flooding the plot with IT-speak, it's as sharp and engaging as Good Will Hunting, if not as touchy-feely and redeeming. When it was all said and done, I was left with the same impression of Zuckerberg as I was of Steve Jobs after finishing his biography: the guy's a scumbag, but he found his sweet spot in this world and made the most of it, for both himself and society at large.