Director: David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac)
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich (book)
Producers: Dana Brunetti, Ceán Chaffin, Michael De Luca, Scott Rudin
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Max Minghella, Josh Pence, Justin Timberlake, Joseph Mazzello, Rooney Mara
MPAA Rating: PG13
Running time: 121 min.

(4/5)

David Fincher’s The Social Network is an age old tale of what happens daily in the business world. The difference here is that involves one of the biggest brands in the world (valued at somewhere in the $25 billion ballpark), best friends (one of which is portrayed as socially inept) and the fact that this all happened before anyone involved turned 25.

The one thing that we need to keep in mind while watching the film is that this is a work of fiction. The people involved know what happened but that’s about it. Regardless of how well researched Ben Mezrich’s book is (from which the talented Aaron Sorkin adapted the script), we can’t take it as the bible of what happened but we know the basics and they are that in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his partner Eduardo Saverin launched thefacebook.com (they later dropped “the” from the name). Shortly after launching at Harvard, the site launched at other campuses before eventually going public and everyone and their grandmother having a facebook account. Along the way, Zuckerberg burned a few bridges, causing a few lawsuits (the film’s tag line accurately reads: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”) and facebook is still the biggest thing in the world. Ah, brand power overshadows much.

Sorkin takes the bits of public knowledge there is about these individuals with whatever Mezrich included in his book, to create a group of characters who are young, smart and for the most part, completely unlikeable. It’s no wonder David Fincher agreed to direct this: these are some of the most ruthless and scary individuals I’ve seen this year. Suckerberg is painted, from the film’s start, as a socially inept genius whose sole reason for creating facebook is to get the attention of exclusive clubs populated by the rich and popular that won’t even spit his way. Not to mention, he’s willing to throw anyone under the bus (including his best friend) if it means being accepted by the cool kids never mind that along the way and unbeknownst to him (except when it’s blatantly pointed out), he’s becoming a cool kid. Boiled down, this is a story of one kid with a dream to be popular at any cost. He could just as easily have turned to murder.

Jesse Eisenberg steps out of his quietly geeky and likeable roles to take on Zuckerberg and he plays the genius social outcast brilliantly. He opens the film with a tirade that is both sad and hilarious and carries the same energy and attitude through the entire film, cultivating an air of arrogance and self importance as the story develops. Adding to the pile of vile creatures is the troubled and broke Napster co-founder Sean Parker played by Justin Timberlake who is, in the excellently written introduction to the character, made out to be both a genius and an asshole. Fincher takes full advantage of Timberlake’s striking facial features, framing and lighting his every appearance in such away that he appears the devil incarnate. Horn’s wouldn’t have been overkill. The one beacon of goodness here is Eduardo Saverin which Andrew Garfield injects with a natural goodness and easy going attitude. He’s portrayed as a guy who would do anything for his best friend and ended up screwed for his trouble is the only one to garner sympathy.

Fincher’s film is a thing of beauty; gorgeous cinematography, bright boardrooms and frat parties are captured effortlessly all the while building a sense of urgency and impending doom; something is preparing to blow up. Fincher isn’t a flashy director but he injects a dreamlike sequence (my favourite of the film) on the Thames which is accompanied by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ rendition of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” which comes across as part dream and part drug fuelled nightmare.

There’s much more than could be said about The Social Network but the bottom line is that the genius of Fincher’s film is that on the surface, it’s an easily digestible drama about teens with too much money and power doing each other wrong. Yet just below the surface, there’s a feeling that this might well be the beginning of the end for our society; a society where money and popularity are put above all else and a site which promotes the latter is at the top of the food chain. Certainly gives Peter Travers’s claim that the film defines a decade some weight.

All of this under the guise of entertaining drama. Not bad at all.