"You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" - Tagline for "The Social Network"

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2011)

OK, by now everyone on planet Earth has heard about the social networking phenomenon that is Facebook, launched in 2004 by co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room at Harvard University. By now, no doubt we've read the stories about how it came to be and how Zuckerberg has since become one of the youngest (if not the youngest) billionaires in the world. What we haven't seen, is a movie that highly dramatizes Facebook's founding for entertainment and educational purposes. So here is "The Social Network."
I have a Facebook account, let's just get that out there. Want to friend me? Send me an e-mail. How many people at IMDb don't have Facebook accounts? Come on, be honest; shoot me a private message and we'll talk about it. OK, back to the movie. Director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (working from Ben Mezrich's highly embellished novel "The Accidental Billionaires") have created an outstanding film, a film that masterfully captures an era, and the revolutionary young tech genius behind it all, as well as the friends and colleagues he either intentionally or unintentionally alienated as a result of Facebook's mammoth, unprecedented success.
The problem with movies that "define a generation" (like "Rebel without a Cause," "The Graduate," "American Graffitti," "The Breakfast Club," etc.) is that they are very much products of that time. They capture what it was like at that time, in this case, the era of social networking. By that very fact alone, the picture will become dated some time down the line. "The Social Network" will undoubtedly be added to that list, as well as many more. But it's still fun to live in the moment.
It is suggested that in the film, which opens in 2003, Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) may have created "FaceMash," Facebook's early predecessor, because of a nasty break-up with his then-girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), to get girls, and elevate his status on campus. The online traffic from FaceMash crashes part of Harvard's server, and he is put on six-month academic probation as a result. Nonetheless, others are impressed. He is thus recruited by wealthy seniors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer and body-doubled by Josh Pence) and their business partner Divya Narenda (Max Minghella) to help create a social networking website for them as their programmer.
Now this is where things start to get sketchy. This inspires Zuckerberg to start his own social networking website called "Thefacebook" which will be exclusive to Harvard University students. Using the financing of his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and recruiting roommates Dustin Moskovitz (Joseph Mazzello) and Chris Hughes (Patrick Mapel), "Thefacebook" is soon up & running, and has gone beyond Harvard's borders to many other prestigious college campuses around the U.S. and quickly, around the world.
This doesn't impress the Winklevoss's and Narenda, who soon cry foul and allege that Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social networking website. Another wrinkle in the scheme of things is file-sharing website Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), whose shady personal and professional exploits are well-known to anyone old enough to remember Napster (I certainly do!). He has soon worked his way into Zuckerberg and Saverin's inner-circle and is now giving them financial and marketing advice (and he eventually became Facebook's first president), which doesn't sit well with Eduardo since he views Parker as a threat - both to Facebook and his friendship with Zuckerberg. Intertwined with their rising success, is what happened afterward, with Zuckerberg giving depositions in two different lawsuits: one with the Winklevosses and the other with Eduardo.
The rest is history.
"The Social Network" is a phenomenal film, a film that perfectly captures an era; thus my earlier assertion that it's a period piece that "defined a generation," the Facebook generation. Also, even though Facebook's founding is a classic tale of unlikely success, as are most American success stories, "The Social Network" is not a purely American film. No, it's a universal film. Hence, Facebook's appeal to people all over the world (online membership only recently surpassed the 600 million user mark), at least, to people in those countries that will allow online access to it.
And not only that, Facebook has become a culture all on its own. You can't go anywhere online anymore without seeing a "Like" button connected to Facebook, or a link offering you the choice of posting a web page to your Facebook "Wall." Or you can't be in a college classroom (or high school classroom, for that matter), without watching others - or doing so yourself - logging into their Facebook accounts updating their statuses with witty lines like, "In class, so bored!" or "I'd rather be stabbing myself in the eyeballs with a pair of rusty scissors than listen to his/her nagging voice go on and on!" Facebook is also highly addictive. It's almost like a drug. Perhaps when you're first starting out, you just can't get enough of it. You're on it all day/night.
If anything, the success of "The Social Network" with both critics and at the box office (and more recently, the Golden Globes) has brought in more users who just want to see what all the hoopla is about. The film might as well have been a two-hour advertising campaign in that regard. Having been a Facebook user for three-and-a-half years now, I can see that this movie was an event movie in the making, and an event movie that lived up to the event it depicted and perfectly captured a slice of an era. You can say all you want about Zuckerberg and his back-room dealings in getting Facebook started (I just don't know the guy), but you can't deny its impact and this film's deserved success in showcasing a modern phenomenon that's likely to continue for a very long time. Facebook is Zuckerberg's baby and like any newborn, it's still just in its infancy.
10/10