The Social Network

When Aaron Sorkin's name is attached to a project, you know I will be excited. It is just who I am. His hyper-literate self important characters speak to me and I want to be them. However, his name attached to a movie about Facebook was odd to me. To have it be directed by David Fincher, star Jesse Eisenberg, co-star Justin Timberlake and have the score done by Trent Renzor, looked off. On paper this is a movie that should not work. Then the teaser came out and I was hooked again. Then the full length trailer came out and it immediately became my must see fall movie. My expectations could not be managed or handled. I was setting myself to be disappointed because with every passing moment, I was getting more and more excited. I needed this movie in my life and that, as we all know, can be a problem. a little over a week before the release I got the chance to see it. Could it possibly live up to the expectations I set for it?

In Harvard in 2003 an awkward, yet arrogant young man, Mark Zuckerberg(Eisenberg) is being dumped by his girlfriend after he insulted her with his honesty. Drunk, depressed and lonely, Zuckerberg blogs. As he blogs, he creates a website where he puts the pictures of Harvard girls up and people can vote on which one is hotter. To do this, he has to hack into dorm websites and break a few other honor code laws, but in just over 2hrs, the site gets 22,000 hits and crashes the entire Harvard Internet server. This gets him in considerable trouble, but it also catches the attention of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss(both played by Armie Hammer) who are trying to build a Harvard dating website and need a programmer. Zuckerberg takes the job because these two guys belong to the most exclusive club at Harvard and Zuckerberg wants in. At the same time Zuckerberg gets the idea to create an entire on-line networking site. He wants to take the entire college experience and put it on-line at Harvard. He approaches his best friend Eduardo Savarin(Andrew Garfield) with the idea, Savarin loves it and puts up the capital to start it. The site, The Facebook, is an instant smash. Zuckerberg gets sued by the Wilklevoss twins, but the site keeps growing until it catches the attention of Sean Parker(Justin Timerlake) who created Napster. Sean has ideas on how to really make money from Facebook that will make them all rich.

Told with Aaron Sorkin's trademark fractured narrative, The Social Network not only met my insane expectations, it surpassed them. The story is told to us through the two lawsuits involving Zuckerberg. The winklevoss twins' suit and Eduardo's suit against him for pushing him out of the company. In between the scenes of the depositions, we get filled in on what happened, from all of the different perspectives. The film does not point fingers with any confidence, it just presents the factually based story and allows the audience to make up their own minds as to what really happened. Sorkin's script is absolutely perfect. His dialogue blisters off of the screen when spoken by Eisenberg and company, but he also gets the stuff on the outskirts of the dialogue. Sorkin understands the pacing of this story and he knows how to create polarizing characters. he presents this story with biting commentary on the world in which we live, but he also allows the characters to find their voices.

The characters, as portrayed by the entire company are really something to watch. Eisenberg is a revelation as Zuckerberg. He plays him with insane arrogance, but he also plays the withdrawn, unsure side with just as much zest. Eisenberg is already adept at playing fast talking characters, but here is always speaking with purpose. He is a man with no filter and he knows he is the smartest person of any room, including his peers at Stanford. However, what really sold me on him was everything that happened after the Sean Parker character is introduced. Eisenberg's transformation from that moment is stunning. For his Timberlake sets the movie on fire. The manic glint in his as he tries to sell himself to the idea of being on the Facebook team is excellent and he handles the "Sean Parker is crazy" stuff with realism as well. He loses his Justin Timberlake-ness every time he comes on the screen and he leaves a trail of flames every time he exits the picture. Andrew Garfield (our new Spider Man) is remarkable as Edaurdo Savarin. He is kind of our hero in a way. He is the one we really feel bad for, but Garfield is not going for our sympathy, really. He plays Savarin as a man who is arrogant, and savvy, but also wounded and loyal. He believes in the friendship fully.

David Fincher took a risk with this picture, I think. Fincher has a distinct look in his films and The Social Network does not really fit that look. Fincher decides the story, the dialogue and the characters can tell this story and they just need someone to gently point them in the right direction. Fincher does the job exactly how he should. He does get to add his touch, with the colors, especially the way the movie transforms the color scheme when the action moves to Los Angeles. I also love the way he shot the Regatta race. I like that he included the Regatta race. I am not sure it is totally needed, but it added something to the Wilklevoss characters. It kind of makes you ache for them a bit. I love the way the camera or the way it was edited can totally change a moment and capture the tiniest moment from Zuckerberg. The score is also top notch. Reznor's moody, cynical hypnotic searing score adds so much to the entire mood of the film, especially in the scene where Zuckerberg has created the girl rating site and the student body is exploring it.

I cannot say enough amazing things about this movie and there are probably people out there who have been able to better articulate their thoughts, but here I am four days removed from the film and all I can think about is how excited I am to see it again. The opening scene's buzzing back and forth dialogue, to Justin Timberlake's excellently delivered "A million dollar's isn't cool. You know what's cool..A Billion dollars" and everything else is stunning. The movie not only features all of this technical jargon, that sounds pretty good actually, but it has these epic lines like "Every creation myth needs a devil." Aaron Sorkin is the star of this movie, but his performance in writing it enhancing everything else we see and hear. No one knows controlling like Sorkin and here is has crafted this perfectly complex character with Mark Zuckerberg and Eisenberg plays each of those complex layers in a way that you can, at times, feel for Zuckerberg. All he wanted was this girl and in the end his inability to connect to people in a real way was his downfall. He created this perfect tool for faking real connection, while allowing us to stay completely detached and perhaps that is the only thing Zuckerberg really knows.

It is a fast and funny movie as well. Do not get bogged down in the idea of law stuff, or computer geek stuff. The Social Network has everything you need. It comes armed with great jokes, very smartly written jokes at that. It has teenage awkwardness. It hints at sex, it has intrigue to go along with all of the bad ass dialogue. The Social Network will most likely end up as my favorite movie of the year and to be honest, it will probably end up as one of my all time favorite movies if subsequent viewings hold up, like I expect they will. It is a case of master craftsman coming together for one amazing project and hitting it in every beat, scene, word, sound, and frame. There is not a wasted moment to be found in the very tightly paced 2 hour movie and I truly cannot wait until Friday when I can see it again.

Final Grade: A+

P.S. If "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" is not the best tagline for a movie, show me what is?