THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Directed by David Fincher
When David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK was announced, I was skeptical. “It’s too early for a Facebook movie,” I thought. When Fincher stated that he wanted to make his version of a John Hughes movie for a new generation, I was worried. “How in the hell does that make any sense?” I thought. And when the reviews flooded in claiming that THE SOCIAL NETWORK wasn’t just a great movie but one that summarizes an entire generation’s progress into a digital age, I still resisted, despite everything.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is pretty much a masterpiece. It achieves everything it sets out to do with a sense of restraint and without the sprawling and meandering feel of the almost-great ZODIAC. It’s a fast-paced dissection of three men (boys, really) caught up in something larger than they could have thought possible: the creation of Facebook, a word that began as window art and ended up being synonymous with an enormous cross-section of human lives, at once a noun, verb and adjective.
Much of this has to do with Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Facebook creator (thief?) Mark Zuckerberg. On the page, and at first glance, the role demands nothing more than what we’ve seen Eisenberg capable of — the man is a neurotic and and precocious brat, and the choice seems obvious. But the man brings everything to the table, bringing Zuckerberg to life in a way that embodies every foul thing that’s ever been written about the man. It’s fascinating to watch someone channel all of their competitive spirit and personal woes into a creative force, and seeing Eisenberg cut every man in the room down to size is a pleasure.
The rest of the cast is no slouch, either. Justin Timberlake (who is definitely going the Sinatra route as opposed to the Presley route — he’s been terrific in every film he’s been in yet) as Napster founder and human bullet train Sean Parker is a great embodiment of the wealth that lays in Zuckerberg’s future, and up-and-coming star Andrew Garfield as CFO Eduardo Saverin is a great counterpart to the quiet, menacing, naive Eisenberg. The cast is also loaded with smaller, great performances from people like Rashida Jones and THE FLY’s John Getz — it’s wall-to-wall well-performed.
Fincher’s direction, with every succeeding film, has gotten better and better. While his latest have had problems with dealing with excesses, THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a marvel of editing — no scene is extraneous, everything seamless — and when paired with a courageous and unique score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the tone of this film becomes another character in and of itself.
I still don’t know if I buy the John Hughes comparison. If there’s any film of Hughes’ that THE SOCIAL NETWORK resembles, it’s FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF — a film in which a similarly precocious smart-ass warps his world into the place he wants it to be. The dialogue is comparable, however — Aaron Sorkin’s script is among the best I’ve watched unfold on screen in the past year, and the dialogue in this film is so sharp, witty and somehow natural that it should be taught in film courses.
In all honesty, THE SOCIAL NETWORK is so good that I can’t ponder many of its flaws after an initial viewing. Perhaps a few things will slip here and there when I revisit it, perhaps dialogue will become hokey or a performance weakened. But for those seeing it in the theater this weekend — this is what we go to see non-fiction stories for on screen. What could have been a dull retread of a true tale that everybody is at least slightly familiar with has turned into one of Fincher’s finest works of art.
Is it really that good of a movie???