Only the best it could be with such a limited structure

Rating: 6/10 (27 November 2010)

Social Network is nearly as good a film as could possibly be made out of this remit: Anal, vindictive, extremely smart nerd at college creates web site, and the film flashes backwards and forwards between those days and the later law suits.
The film doesn't go down the terribly over-worn road of lawsuit in courtroom drama, holding it within an airy high-up office room, with easy close-ups all round. Fincher also makes the college campus as picturesque as he possibly can. He begins with a bang, smartly gong straight into the armchair-psychologist's accounting for why the character did everything he did: by being spurned in love during this scene.
Social Network could have been improved if it didn't employ that common trick nowadays of cramming too much, too fast into dialog, so that it washes over the listener. Only the gist of the thing comes across, with the detail sounding like good writing, but from what it sounds like, not what's in it, which goes by intentionally too fast.
Other than that, the film could not have been improved given the structure that it must conform to. The acting is excellent, including Justin Timberlake, a boy-band version of the real-life man. The trouble is, the structure is far to constricting: flashbacks between the scenes of making the site and later legal side (almost all in one room). That's all there is to it. The story as-told doesn't call for any depth to the characters to be shown. When I say 'depth' I mean as shown by perceptive writing.
In Social Network, the characters and how they work internally is blatantly sign-posted. The framework of the tale doesn't allow anything more through. Sean Parker is charismatic but nowhere near as confident as he seems, as telegraphed by asthma inhaler and young girls. Mark Zuckerberg's story has its roots in the lost love bar scene.
With the acting as it is, but the film perhaps including some tangents, some subtlety and most importantly, a framework not limited to just two settings, this could have been a far better film. As it is, it is very good for the limited work that it is, which equals only a good film.