When we first lay eyes on Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) in “The Social Network,” he looks pretty unassuming. His close-cropped, curly hair, his slight build buried in a baggy sweatshirt, his sad eyes all scream an everyman, your average nerd. But after waxing poetically about trying to get into one of Harvard’s elite final clubs to his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara), she promptly dumps him because frankly, he’s not a very nice guy. Then, almost as if he flips a switch, Mark’s eyes change from that of sadness and longing and become cold, steely, and full of fire. He leaves in a huff, and takes his anger out in the only way that he seems to know how, on the Internet.
It’s these rants—along with a pretty crass and comical internet site about the women of Harvard (that’s too good to spoil)—that brings him to the attention of the university’s conduct board as well as the Winklevoss brothers (Armie Hammer, pulling double duty by playing both roles) a pair of upper-crust, identical twins on Harvard’s rowing team. They’re looking for a programmer to create Harvard Connection, a site where users could add friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Sound familiar?
So when Zuckerberg goes back to his dorm and tells his good buddy Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), and suggests a site called The Facebook where users could add friends, send them messages, and update personal profiles to notify friends about themselves, but they have to be invited to join, just like the exclusive clubs Mark isn’t getting into, we all begin to get a bit suspicious. He asks Eduardo to be the CFO, gets $1000 for startup costs, and they begin their work.
Noted wordsmith Aaron Sorkin (“A Few Good Men,” TV’s “The West Wing”) beautifully and efficiently sets up the film as part intellectual thriller part court room drama. The narrative I’ve described above is interspliced with scenes from the two lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg by Saverin and the Winklevosses. We never know with whom our allegiances lie because as much as we think we know the true story, no one, except maybe the real Zuckerberg, will ever truly know what happened in those beer-soaked back rooms.
Based on “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezerick, Every time a new piece of information is revealed, we’re expertly cut back to the depositions in the conference rooms, where each side is able to put its own spin on the events. Credit editors Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for being able juggle all of these intricate pieces with precision and flair.
David Fincher, a director so-closely and adeptly associated with striking visuals and beautiful set pieces (Remember “Se7en” or “Fight Club”), has allowed Sorkin’s dialogue to soar through. The expert camera work is still there, but just as an added bonus, we get a script so witty, so cunning, that the words feel like daggers to gut every time.
The reason the dialogue sounds so good though is it’s being said by a cast of some of Hollywood’s freshest and most sparkling new talent. Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin seems to be the only person in the film with any shred of soul left. The film contends the only mistake he ever made, in Zuckerberg’s mind, was dreaming too small. It’s a tragic performance that will leave you breathless from his awkward arrival through the embittered tell-off he gives Mark towards the close.
Justin Timberlake, with a laid back charm and earthy realness, plays Sean Parker (a sort of devil in disguise), the co-creator of Napster who befriends Mark as a way to get in on the action of Facebook and to show Mark what potential spoils can be gained from living the high life.
The film is held together though, through the amazing breakthrough of Jesse Eisenberg as Mark. Eisenberg isn’t a stranger to movie audiences. He’s been the awkward, stammering, young twentysomething in “Adventureland” or “Zombie Land,” but his work here is something completely new. He can rattle off Sorkin’s dialogue with such ease and beauty you’d think he thought it up himself. His facial reactions show everything he’s feeling and he doesn’t mind anyone seeing it. He’s able to carry such bravado and such fierce ambition; you know he’ll stop at nothing to achieve his goals, no matter who he hurts.
The film has caught considerable flack from the actual people involved for the dramatic liberties that Sorkin and Fincher have taken to tell their story, but the filmmakers are not looking for complete or exact accuracy. They’re not making a documentary, and the film speaks more directly to a generation of people and how they interact with the world around them. The film taps into such a primal and integral part of the college experience: wanting to be accepted, wanting to be liked. Mark creates Facebook in the first place is to be able to control who gets into his special little club.
In a world so large and expansive where even the most confident individuals can feel lost in the shuffle; Mark wants to create a place where people can come together, and a place where he can feel better about himself. He’s a 21st century Citizen Kane whose relationships are laid waste to his mile-high ambition.
Unlike Citizen Kane though, we don’t really know if by the end Mark Zuckerberg has any trace of the young guy who we meet in the beginning of the movie. He has certainly changed from the beginning, but how much? You as an audience will be immeasurably changed by the continued power of “The Social Network.” Grade: A
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