The Social Network
Review
by Anthony Morris
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The Social Network
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It's an old story : what good is it to gain the world if in the process you lose your soul? One of the many, many strong points in The Social Network
(this extremely smart and surprisingly funny look at the creation of
Facebook) is that, despite a seemingly endless series of scenes and
lines designed to show him as an self-obsessed, empathy-free monster,
there's never any serious doubt that Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg)
actually does have a soul. It's just buried under a chip on his shoulder you could land an aircraft carrier on. Our
story begins at Harvard in 2003 with Zuckerberg acting like a
self-obsessed jerk and being (rightfully) dumped by his girlfriend in
an extremely harsh fashion. From this comes a drunken
hate-filled blog and a pretty impressive program to compare the hotness
of all the girls on campus. How this gets to the creation of Facebook
is a long and complex story, told by jumping forward in time to
the various depositions for the lawsuits that (pretty much everyone who
ever knew) are bringing against Zuckerberg for screwing them over in
his climb to the top. Thanks to a laser-sharp script by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) and direction by David Fincher (Seven, Zodiac),
what could have been two hours of talking heads – they're computer
programmers doing business deals, after all - becomes a constantly
moving narrative powerhouse. But everyone involved - right
down to Eisenberg (who usually comes off as a no-name brand Michael
Cera) manages to lock himself down with a masterfully internal
performance - refuses to nail down the nature of the people that make
up this story, avoiding the black-and-white morality tale trap The Social Network could have so easily fallen into. Zuckerberg could be a scheming prick, or could he be just be a young man in over his head? He could be driven by the need for acceptance, but then why does he push everyone away? Especially
when he's surrounded by real-life colourful characters like the twin
blond rowing stars who create a pre-facebook site that Zuckerberg works
for without doing any actual work (both played by Armie Hammer) and the
somewhat paranoid inventor of Napster (Justin Timberlake in an
excellent performance). Layered on top of that is a
questioning look at what it is people actually want from the internet,
on top of that there's a lot of parties, and on top of that are a lot
of great rapid-fire lines that make what is at its heart a movie about
computer programming and lawsuits a whole lot more fun than it should
be. It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s complex and it’ll make you
think : like the internet itself, if you don't get on board with this
one you'll be left behind. 4.5 out
of 5
The Social Network
Australian release: 28th October,
2010
Official
Site: The Social Network
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Justin Timberlake, Max Minghella
Director: David Fincher
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