The Social Network (2010)
The Social Network(USA) Directed by David Fincher Written by Aaron Sorkin Starring Jesse Eisenberg; Justin Timberlake; Rooney Mara; Andrew Garfield; Max Minghella; Armie Hammer; Joseph Mozzello
Hollywood has every resource its disposal - the money to buy the best technology and technicians; the ability to cast most any actor; access to locations across the world; the best post production personnel, procedures, and equipment; the best composers; millions to throw at advertising and promotion. The reasons why then so little quality winds up emerging are likely too numerous to try to delineate here, and of course the end goal is money as opposed to artistic merit, but suffice to say there is simply not a plethora of well constructed, reasonably thoughtful, entertaining films made by major Hollywood studios.
The Social Network is an example of a quality concept that somehow got a studio to throw $50 million dollars at it, which in today’s insane Hollywood financing landscape is actually below the estimated average budget for a studio film. Perhaps the lack of a comparatively extravagant budget is one of the reasons why the film manages to retain some feeling of authorship amongst a sea of products that too often feel like the result of filmmaking by committee.
That is not to say that the result might necessarily be identified as a “David Fincher Film”. Though there are socially relevant themes contained (and cinema in general has a tremendous ability - too often squandered - to relate the important stories of our time) in this tale covering the rise of Facebook, the most successful social networking site in the history of the Internet, it is far from the dark, foreboding piece one might readily associate with the director of Fight Club; Seven; and Zodiac.
This is, however, the same filmmaker who made Benjamin Button, and (though that film was heralded for its work with reverse aging Brad Pitt), The Social Network too is hardly marked by cutting edge themes or hard edged violence and sex. The technique is solid, and the pace swift, but this is the kind of relatively straight-forward bio-pic/recent historical drama in the same general realm as that of a crowd/critic pleaser like the $30 million Up In the Air.
Based on the 2009 non-fiction bestseller by Ben Mezrich (and an excellent script from West Wing guy Aaron Sorkin), the story is a fascinating one, and the nebbishy Jesse Eisenberg seems a perfect fit for founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, currently the youngest billionaire in the world. Though the distillation of his story into a metaphor involving his pursuit of, and resentment toward, women seems (whether true or not) more than a little simplistic, the ideas supporting the development of a site that represents a huge shift in the way human beings across the world communicate and interact are effectively and satisfyingly portrayed. Zuckerberg’s story (or at least the one put forth on screen) speaks to the psychological nature of why and how we use the Internet and the way it both reflects human nature and simultaneously affects it.
The story begins in 2003, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts, where Zuckerberg, an undergrad from New York, writes computer programs, getting in trouble with the school for crashing the university network with his invention of Facemash, which involved the judgment of female students based on their looks. His partners in crime included Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who would become Facebook’s CFO, and Zuckerberg’s programmer roommates, Dustin Moskovitz (Joseph Moszzello) and Chris Hughes (Patrick Mapel), who would also assist him in launching what was then titled The Facebook.
The film starts with Zuckerberg being broken up with by his pretty girlfriend, Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) at a college bar. During the conversation, he reveals himself to be a selfish, insecure, petty, and nakedly ambitious young man, utterly unaware of the snobbery and arrogance that Erica clearly abhored. Ironically, fueled by his own social awkwardness and lack of acceptance from elite college social groups, Zuckerberg is hell bent on shaking up the ingrained, elitist power bases that, from his perspective, conspire to keep him on the outs.
The crux of the long since settled legal controversy over the origins of Facebook revolve around the claims by Tyler Winklevoss, his identical twin, Cameron (both played by Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella), Harvard students who attempted to hire Zuckerberg to write code for a site they were developing called The Harvard Connection. There seems little doubt (as evidenced by the settlement that would later occur) that Zuckerberg “borrowed” some of their ideas, and also engaged in deception by stall and delay tactics that aided him in getting there first, launching his own amalgamated version of their idea (one he, by the way, was probably already circling around). There also seems to be little question that Zuckerberg is and was an extremely intelligent innovator who likely would have made his mark in some computer related venture regardless.
The nuanced, chicken or the egg aspect adds to the suspense, but this is a film where the journey is ultimately much more important than the end result. Intellectual property law is a complicated arena, and sussing out some definitive truth from a subject like this might be nearly impossible. In the end, Zuckerberg moved on (some might say ruthlessly) from some of the people who helped make the site what it eventually became. Whether this is an organic element in the development of any multi-billion dollar company, or speaks to major flaws in the character and morality of its founder is open to question. Further, there are real questions over how accurate the details of the story are in the first place (Zuckerberg reportedly did not cooperate with the book or film), and just how many fictionalized elements have been added to the mix in a set of events that have already become the stuff of lore. What’s undeniable is the influence Facebook has had on modern communication across the world, the amount of money the company has generated, and the vast potential for Facebook to continue to impact the future of the most important technological invention of our time.
An effective score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; exceptional editing (Kirk Baxter; Angus Wall); and a solid supporting performance by Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker further assist in making The Social Network undoubtedly one of the top films of the year.