A story of greed, envy and betrayal

Rating: 8/10 (18 November 2010)

David Fincher's latest is a wonderful film regarding the founding of that modern phenomenon we call Facebook. It's about what happens to friends when ambition, solidarity and loyalty turn into greed, envy and betrayal.
Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg is an adept computer-programmer. After breaking up with his girlfriend, he revengefully hacks into confidential records to retrieve images of female students, which he uses to create a perverse online game where people can decide who is 'hot or not'.
This causes a furore, as singular dexterity was required to commit such an act. Zuckerberg's programming prowess duly attracts the attention of other Harvard students, who request his help to form a forerunner of Facebook. Zuckerberg accepts and before long is sued by them, and also by his best friend, for intellectual property theft. Much of the film takes place before a tribunal.
We learn that Zuckerberg's motivation is neither money or prestige. It's battling against an inferiority complex by obsessing in his vocation. Either that or he is what some people with power cannot avoid being: hubristic.
It's understandable why he did not want a film to be made about him while he was alive. His portrayal (by Jessie Eisenberg) is not a generous one: cold, supercilious, treacherous. Paradoxically, he was the one to realise what humans crave most is interaction with other humans.
Aaron Sorkin deserves standalone recognition for his peppery script. Unlikely though it may be, Justin Timberlake gives a suave performance as business brain Sean Parker. I didn't think I'd sympathise with the plight of the well-to-do youngsters; yet I did, thanks to the credible lead performances of Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield (soon to play Spider-Man) as Facebook co-creator Eduardo Saverin.
Oscar Wilde once said 'To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity'. You could say a similar thing about the one in every 14th person who subscribes to Facebook. But this film isn't about the merits of the number one social network. Rather, it seeks to explain how such a phenomenon changed the very people who assumed they would stay together no matter what.
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