The Social Network

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) develop the website that ultimately becomes Facebook.com in The Social Network. Starting at the end with the story’s resulting court cases and looking back from there, with alternating perspectives (admittedly in the style of Rashomon) the film deconstructs and explores the actual legal and technical ramifications that ensued in the developing of Facebook, as well as exploring and dramatising the emotional aspects behind the motives of the key people involved, and the separation between two best friends. Also starring Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer among other well cast performers, The Social Network is directed by David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac) and written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War, A Few Good Men) adapted from the novel The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, as well as being based on a true story, of course.

The Social Network is certainly the sum of its research and resources as it strikes you early on, with a wall of information. This is staggering at first but as it develops, you find yourself breathing in everything it has to give (albeit breathing deeply). From the David Fincher films I have seen, there is often a notable shifting scale between “brainy stuff” and “emotional stuff” that changes from film to film, to put it all extremely broadly. The “brainy stuff” would include interesting facts, complex but well presented structural elements, or complicated plot layouts. The “emotional stuff” would include more spectacle like elements such as aesthetically tense sequences, dramatic performances, or marginally fantastic concepts or events that are sometimes funny and rely on the willful suspense of disbelief. Often when these “Things”-of-”Stuff” (that’s right) individually escalate one can be strongly sacrificed for the other (of course this is a common dynamic with film in general, however when it comes to David Fincher’s direction this shifting of scales has always been that more noticeable to me).

To quickfire a few examples Panic Room would be a film that raises its “emotional stuff” a good bit higher, lowering its “brainy stuff”, and therefore it is a lot more of a spectacle than a commentary of any kind. Zodiac would be a film that raises its “brainy stuff” quite high and greatly lowers its “emotional stuff”, which made it too fact based and harder to invest in (although I must admit I always feel like I’m going against the grain for criticising Zodiac for this, as people often disagree). Also The Curious Case of Benjamin Button‘s “emotional stuff” is pretty damn high (too high even).

The Social Network has something of a waving between the two elements as we kick in with marginally more “emotional stuff” but then start to get into facts and structural elements causing the film to feel a bit too brainy. However, when it comes to the payoffs, it delivers emotionally with excellent relief and feeling of adequacy towards the amount of information used to bring us there (I admit the last three paragraphs were the long warped road to a short thought).

This all of course applies not only to David Fincher’s direction but also Aaron Sorkin’s screenwriting. It is also important to say that the “brainy stuff” isn’t necessarily facts and transcripts of what happened in reality, but rather the facts and transcripts from within the film’s world, which fictionalises and dramatises fact.

Perhaps I’m getting lost in much of my thoughts on the film’s storytelling because it doesn’t just tell one story. There are so many aspects to every single stage of the film, that it makes it impossible to simplify The Social Network to one simple arc, although it does seem to try to do this, but results in merely book-ending itself, and very well I might add.

The cast is superb all the way through. Every character is pretty much an absolute or caricature of the real life people that they reflect while still maintaining a humanity and air of realism. With everyone doing such a great job it’s very hard to think of any notes that might be needed to be made. However, I would like to say that Justin Timberlake is excellent but then again I think we’re past the point of being surprised by his impressive acting and now all know that this is something he can do. Armie Hammer’s dual performance as the Winklevoss twins is also excellent, although I found myself distracted by the pointless face masking used in some scenes, to double the actor up, which really didn’t impress in terms of technical efficiency and like I said, distracted from the performance, however it only presented itself a few times early on in the film.

It is also worth mentioning that the musical score provided by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross is terrific and deserves to be considered an individual performance among the others in this film.

So, although I nitpick and greatly over-analysis specific aspects, The Social Network really is a wonderfully charging chunk of brain sugar. As touched on earlier (within brackets) the film borrows from an Akira Kurosawa technique but also in many ways retells much of Revenge of the Nerds and similar nerd vs. jock stories that have been told many times before and since. It will wake up your brain and leave you energised and refreshed.

It is a slick and sharp movie that is consequentially intellectually sexy and is not only the best film directed by Fincher since a certain success in the late 90s (that rhymes with Night Club) or the finest and most relevant contemporary film I’ve been mature enough to appreciate in its own time, but also the boldest and most intensely engrossing film that I have had the privilege of seeing, this year.

 

5 out of 5