Overrated, But It Stays With You

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2010)

This film has been the subject of breathless reviews. The media response has been hot and heavy too. Is this an event movie? Is this going to change the way anyone looks at anything, or is it a Vanity Fair article that got made into a feature film? I don't think this movie really lives up to its publicity. For one thing, the cinematography is almost incompetent. Many scenes are poorly lit and murky. There's a cold, gritty washed out look to a lot of the footage. The soundtrack can be somewhat invasive. It sounds like an African tribe performing "Flight of the Bumblebees" while on tranquilizers. Although there's a lot of money at stake, the story is fairly simple: a maladjusted, insecure male does various things because of unresolved feelings, especially about women. He just happens to invent a social network that goes on to include half a billion people.
Although the movie has its good points, I suspect that the breathless response by the media is related to substantial ad revenues.
Jesse Eisenberg turns in a compelling performance as the founder of Facebook. There is also a wonderful scene where then President of Harvard Larry Summers is unbelievably arrogant and pompous. In it, he predicts that Facebook will never amount to anything, based on his opinion as a former Secretary of the Treasury. Most of the performances are good. I didn't really buy Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker. I've never seen Sean Parker, but he is supposed to be a hacker/programmer. Although he eventually started to date models, snort coke and hang out in nightclubs, I don't think that someone like Justin Timberlake has the type of presence that a hacker would have. Nerds and musicians definitely inhabit their bodies in different ways. I've never seen the character Justin was playing, so I could be wrong.
I wish the movie explained how Facebook came to be valued at 25 billion dollars. During the time period covered by movie, the company seems to have no revenue stream except for loans. For the most part, the unimaginable wealth Jesse Eisenberg's character is supposed to have attained is not depicted. Those seems like significant holes in the story.
If you were looking for some kind of vicarious joyride, this movie isn't that. It's more of a balanced look at the good and bad. The movie also contains a lot of misogyny and objectification of women, stemming from the characters' behavior. If this is popcorn movie for you, then I would consider these factors.
In spite of its flaws, I'm still thinking about the movie 24 hours after I saw it. This is a picture of what's wrong with our time: insecure, inadequate males who don't know how to deal with women. Their unresolved feelings can do wonders, or destroy lives--sometimes their own.