Review: "The Social Network"
“This is our time!,” Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker exults to Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg by way of welcoming the Harvard Facebook creator to Silicon Valley, and the same thing can be said by everyone who had anything to do with “The Social Network;” David Fincher can make five more masterpieces, Aaron Sorkin can win an Oscar, Tony and 20 more Emmys; Timberlake, Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer and Mara Rooney can all be big stars for the next half-century, but it will rarely be as sweet as this, a film where not only does everything come together in a way that the whole is even bigger than the sum of its brilliant parts, but where the result so resonantly reflects the time in which it was made.
The story of the virtually accidental birth of Facebook and the subsequent (and continuing) squabbling over the identity of its actual parents, “The Social Network” is a knock-out-- on a first viewing, it seems almost indecently smart, funny and sexy. The second time around, with the witty intelligence of Aaron Sorkin's script and the electrifying verve of David Fincher's direction no longer a surprise, half the time I sat there marveling at the similarities of the story, themes and structure to “Citizen Kane.”
I advance this idea reluctantly, as nothing will cause a film appear overrated like comparing it in any way to the perennial greatest movie ever made in Hollywood. But after getting home from my second look at “The Social Network,” I noticed an interview in which Fincher himself describes it as “the 'Citizen Kane' of John Hughes movies,” which jokily undercuts his own film's importance in an appealing way.
Stylistically and in feel, the films have nothing in common; whereas “Kane” is grandiose, the most filling six-course cinematic meal you could want, “Network” is fleet, like great tapas. Also making an enormous difference is the fact that the arc of “Kane” encompasses a man's entire life, while the new film is the story of the start of something. And, of course, Orson Welles was not only obliged to fictionalize the name of his leading character but also to deny it was based on William Randolph Hearst, whereas it never occurred to Sorkin and Fincher to call Mark Zuckerberg anything other than Mark Zuckerberg, even though their portrait of their subject is no more friendly than is Welles's and Herman Mankiewicz's of Hearst...err, Kane.
Some of the places where “Kane” and “Network” intersect: Both are about titans of a communications empire and both are told in part through the remembrances of those who knew them, “Kane” through direct old-age interviews with old cronies, “Network” through legal hearings triggered by multiple lawsuits by alienated former associates. The subjects of the two films become insanely rich at a very young age, get into trouble at elite schools and never graduate, spurn the establishment and the ordinary rules of the game, and can't hold a woman (although this seems not to be the case with the real Zuckerberg as, on the evidence of a current New Yorker profile, he's now living with a woman he became involved with while still at Harvard). However, this construct by Sorkin enables the writer to create a Rosebud ending for “Network.” And, fundamentally, both Kane and Zuckerberg are men (or characters) with whom friendship may be a one-way street, as Jed Leland and now Eduardo Saverin discover to their peril.
Fundamentally, then, both films center on difficult, unruly men whose lives fascinate because of the extraordinary things they did but also because of the callous ways they treated those closest to them. They are monsters, after a fashion, but always compelling.
But enough of “Kane” and on to the rare pleasures afforded by “The Social Network,” key elements of which lie in the unlikely pairing of Sorkin and Fincher. An avowed internet hater and Facebook know-nothing coming into the project, Sorkin immersed himself in the personalities and background and came up with a “Rashomon”-style approach to tell the story in which no particular person, or version, is right or wrong. He also wrote a script so long (more than 160 pages) and dialogue-heavy that, using the normal estimate of one page per minute of screen time, would have resulted in a movie of over two-and-a-half hours.
As always a master of visual precision, of controlling precisely what he wants to show in a given shot and scene, Fincher must have had all his actors mainlining caffeine, so quickly (and naturally) do they rattle off their dialogue at a pace Howard Hawks would have admired; he gets the whole story told in precisely two hours.
Rarely has a movie provided such a strong hook as the opening scene here, a barroom date in which a lovely young student (played by Mara, who has the lead in Fincher's version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”) upbraids the insulting Zuckerberg thusly: “You're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. That's not true. It'll be because you're an asshole.” Well, he'll show her, which he does in a marathon session in which he hacks into the sites of all the Harvard houses to collect student pictures, the result of which is Facemash, in which girls are rated for their hotness.
Harvard doesn't care for this too much but others do, notably the Winklevoss twins (Hammer, doing remarkable double-duty), WASP gods who recruit the genius Jew to build a networking site they've conceived, The Harvard Connection. But while he's supposedly working on this, Zuckerberg, with the help of $1000 invested by his similarly geeky but better looking friend Eduardo (Garfield), develops the “friends” site he calls thefacebook, which becomes an instant hit in 2004 and soon spreads to other college campuses. Then in blasts Sean Parker (Timberlake), the ex-Napster whiz, to entice Zuckerberg to Palo Alto and inspire him to think really, really big.
The intermittent legal scenes, which are impeccably directed and not overplayed for seething resentment and condescension on both sides, place the moments of youthful invention in the shadow of subsequent fallings-out and recrimination. Every success has its price—in Zuckerberg's case, it's being considered an idea thief and scoundrel—but the failure of vision and tenacity on the part of the “losers” (each of whom collected into the tens of millions in settlements) looms just as large.
“The Social Network” is about so many things--the primacy of an idea, the things that define a generation, ambition and drive fomented by rejection and anger, the limitations of orthodoxy versus unbridled imagination, simultaneous creative and destructive impulses, the fluidity of what's considered an outsider and insider, rebel and establishment—that it provides almost an unlimited number of things to think about, while also providing a viewing experience of continual stimulation. Everything about it is rich.
16 Comments
Monika | May 18, 2011 8:03 AM
To call this film stupid or boring...to criticize colors and atmosphere of this film is just being stupid. It means you know nothing about film or space for that matter. Fincher made a brilliant film..a film about facebook that is about everything else but facebook. You can turn the volume down and still watch it and actually understand everything simply by reading space and colors...thats what films are suppose to be like...editing, light design and space are done with such precision it is unbelievable..it gives me hope that one day film can take the direction Eisenstein and Poudovkin were talking about...watch this film again and pay attention to details..then you will get the full picture for fock sake
Cari | March 27, 2011 12:17 PM
Finally got around to watching The Social Network DVD and found it painfully boring. I don't understand how it could have been nominated for an Oscar.
jordan h. | January 31, 2011 2:29 AM
I will never take a review written by such a seething moron seriously. Thanks to this laugh fest of an 'article' I can safely never read a review by whathisface up here again. He should be embarrassed. I understand that the film egotistically compares itself to Citizen Kane, but for someone to be so pathetically duped by Clueless the sequel is truly embarrassing. The critics are clearly sheep on this one. Are they also comparing Easy A to 8 1/2?
SaMoFilmFan | October 19, 2010 11:16 AM
Social Network is a very good -- but shy of great -- film, but it is emblematic of its time: nothing's sexier than creativity and money, and the two come together these days in no way better than the hustle and culture of the internet. The script is the winner here, keeping Fincher reigned in and honing in the actors with dialog as much as direction. Not to take away a thing from either the director or the thespians, but both are clearly servicing the script -- TV-style, almost docudrama style, from a leading writer who is used to having directors and actors serve his words in the world of television drama.
And it's the drama that works here. Sorkin makes the thematic case that having friends is arguably more important than having money, which Americans no doubt want to believe, but the story celebrates too the importance of intellect, competition and capital in bring any idea to market. There's a touch of Google's "do no evil" in Zuckerberg's early protest that Facebook isn't about money, but of course at every level it is, including the thematic ground floor where a a have-not is challenging the (literally) doubly-entrenched twins of WASP money and physical grace. In fact, the one major omission the story makes is to not show the Harvard twins winning their tiny morsel of Facebook flesh ($65m). (And Fincher can't resist playing technopile: one of the twins is digitized from the other; the rowing competition looks completely fake, even the real parts look fake.
At one level of course the movie is tragedy because the lead is incapable of change, and he comes to recognize it. But as with any American capitalist dream, there's always enough money to go around and keep everybody happy.
M | October 1, 2010 4:12 AM
Its amazing how every 'geriatric' film critic has jumped on the 'like' bandwagon, for this hatchet-job of a talking-heads TV movie, looking to desperately connect with the youth culture.
Eisenberg's beetle-browed robopath characterization, makes Zuckerberg seem less than human. (and the fact that the movie points out he is Jewish is even more despicable.) And CG 'twins' ? Why? Are there not enough twin actors out there ?
Only gangly Garfield comes across, due to the interest of him becoming the next "Spider-Man".
The last line in the film, delivered by a supposed office professional, ties all the loose ends together... NOT-
Fincher when will you do something as extraordinary as "Fight Club" again
LudeFartton | September 29, 2010 3:41 AM
Ok guys, less about the movie and more about the soundtrack. I'm talking Trent Reznor here people! His music, namely his instrumentals, are amazing! Would you not agree? Here I'll start us off...Here's a list of what i think are the best TR instrumentals:
1. La mer
2. Gone, still
3. Leaving Hope
4. Help me I'm in Hell
5. The Downward Spiral
6. Adrift and at peace
7. La mer (alternate version)*
8. A Warm Place
9. The four of us are dying
10. Les Rythmes Digitalis ("Music makes you lose control")*
*May not be the actual work of TR.
What do you guys think? Please don't report me as spam!
Kyle | September 26, 2010 11:55 AM
@JudeWharton:
Are we really supposed to believe that he was over-the-moon over Sean Fanning of Napster? He’s called Sean Parker in the movie.
For the record, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are two different people, who were both involved with Napster but in very different ways.
Adam | September 26, 2010 5:41 AM
Angus, let me guess: you only watch independent snuff films made on bio-degradable film stock shot in the Brazilian rain forests of Peru. To watch anything less - or, to put it another way - to watch anything that actually has to do with the examination or excavation of contemporary culture or the motivations that drive it - would mean that one is "bourgeois", right?
Seriously, Angus - I'm as liberal as they come, but you REALLY need to relax.
Chris | September 25, 2010 5:43 AM
I disagree about those who criticized the trailer -- I am thinking specifically about the full trailer version that opens with the choral cover of Radiohead's Creep -- it really sets the tone for the trailer (and movie) and is eerily relevant, especially if you just consider the lyrics. And the trailer tracks the look, feel and verve of the movie pretty well (I saw it last night's opening night at NYFF). It not only does this, but I think markets the film brilliantly to the demographic I think it will be best suited for and will relate to it the most: people my age, mid to late 20 somethings, like Zuckerberg, who remember Facebook in its infancy, and feel as invested in the movie (and, indeed, in the trailer), if not more, than the 499,999,999 other people with some connection to this movie. The themes the trailer alludes to, then dealt with by the movie, are universal. I loved both!
Angus | September 23, 2010 2:16 AM
An idiotic review parsed and parceled for the upper-class white male hegemony.
LudeFartton | September 23, 2010 1:55 AM
And what of the soundtrack??? I heard Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor created it. I'm sure it's going to be awesome! So, even if the film sucks, at least we have the soundtrack to look forward to! However, I hope the film doesn't suck. I go bye now....
JudeWharton | September 22, 2010 4:05 AM
This review stuns me. I saw the movie at one of those advance preview screenings the other night, and it almost seems as if this critic, Mr. McCarthy, saw a different film.
To compare it to "Citizen Kane" is ridiculous. Hilarious. And the height of folly. "Citizen Kane" is a masterpiece. Every time you watch it, you're not quite sure what's coming next. "The Social Network" plods along with nothing much to say. It keeps repeating the same old: Zuckerberg is strange mantra. There are no surprises.
"The Social Network" is boring. It's two hours of litigation room chatter and computer jargon. There's no character to care about. Not even the whiny and/or arrogant prepsters suing Zuckerberg. In the movie, Zuckeberg is a selfish weirdo. A genius, perhaps, but a selfish jerk to all.
Are we really supposed to believe that he was over-the-moon over Sean Fanning of Napster? He's called Sean Parker in the movie.
Also, Fincher must not have had a lighting designer, because the movie is dark and dressed in dull tones of deep blue, deep mahogany, and deep silver. It's dreary to look at.
The non-linear nature of the film makes everything slow. After seeing it, we were all saying: "gee, who cares?"
Jason | September 21, 2010 8:48 AM
I'll admit the trailers for this film make it seem pretty lame, but after reading this review I'm very interested....(even as a non-Citizen Kane fan)....
w11 | September 21, 2010 8:08 AM
I NEED to see this film NOW. Can;t wait.
Artsy | September 20, 2010 9:57 AM
book book play.
book book play.
Amanda | September 20, 2010 9:50 AM
I can't wait to see it!