The Social Network

 The Social Network  OO 1/2

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language.

The Social Network is the somewhat fictionalized account of the founding of Facebook, and the controversies and law suits that ensued (Lest anyone doubt me, Mark Zuckerberg, the film's protagonist, and Aaron Sorkin, the writer, are both on record that this is not a straight history).  David Fincher, director, and Sorkin (of West Wing fame) certainly put their considerable talents to good use, but I'm not sure that this was the project that those talents should have been used on.  I enjoyed Fincher's visual style, as I did in Fight Club, and his pacing was an upgrade on 2007's Zodiac, an otherwise solid effort that got bogged down by a pointless middle section that never seemed to end (I didn't catch Benjamin Button, his last film). Sorkin's dialogue is quick and sharp and, not allowing himself to be held down by the truth, keeps the story moving.  I walked out though feeling I gained no new insights about the Facebook phenomenon, specifically what it was that drew people to it and why it grew so fast.  I also felt that while the dialogue was strong, the characterizations were weak, with only Justin Timberlake's take on Sean Parker showing any complexity at all.

The problem with bio pics is that life seldom follows a dramatic arc, so either you have to make stuff up or you simply stop when you've run of things to say.  "The Social Network" does both.  Where truth ends and creativity begins in this film is beyond my ability say, and in the end doesn't matter.  Anyone who goes to a movie expecting historical accuracy is in the wrong place anyway (check the public library instead, PLEASE).  But after two hours of following the story via flash backs, cutting between two separate court depositions, it simply ends.  Yes, motivations for founding Facebook are offered, but it seems like a lot of dime store psychology to me. Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, has the same annoyed look on his face from beginning to end, and though he has some great lines to read, there doesn't seem to be any soul there.  The only time he shows any humanity was when he is hectoring his roommate over the alleged mistreatment of a chicken.  This is the type of banter I've seen in college dorms (yes, I went to college) and seemed real.  Other wise Zuckerberg and his companions are blank slates all the way through.  They're the same persons at the end of the film that they were at the beginning, only richer.


The ones treated the worst in this movie are the women.  It may be a geeks world now, but the geeks are still all men.  We get two intelligent, self possessed women under the age of thirty who sandwich the film, and in between all the young ladies are either ditzes, sex objects or psychopaths, (sometimes all three) whose talents are confined to what they can do south of the waistline.

In the final analysis I had the sense that this story was being told too soon.  We are still in the middle of the Facebook fad, if it is just a fad.  What it's long term meaning will be is yet to be determined, and since the characters and motivations are half drawn a comprehensive picture of the age never materializes (not to mention that there is no hint of the post 9/11 world the narrative occupies).  Take away the computers and with all the coke, booze and public lavatory sex this could have been a movie about Studio 54 in the 1970's (no, I was never in Studio 54, in the 1970's or any other time).  There might be an interesting story to be told about the founding of Facebook, I just wish they had waited another 10 years to tell it.
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So for style I give The Social Network and A.  For substance a C-, and that's being generous.