The Social Network is a pretty interesting experiment in making a movie about current events. Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Savarin, and the brothers Winklevoss are all real people, and the events depicted in the film are all, within reason, real events that actually happened. The most difficult task of The Social Network is figuring out a way to make thousands of hours of tinkering with code into something that the average audience can both a) understand and b) not be bored stiff by. The crucial element of this is Aaron Sorkin’s ability behind the keyboard. Sorkin’s brilliant script is absolutely crackling with energy and life. There’s a certain amount of interplay between the characters, in the various depositions, and between Zuckerberg and everyone in his life that just keeps the audience enthralled. It’s almost like one of those fast-talking Marx Brothers comedies, except more absurd because the events in this movie are based in reality. Meanwhile, Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) is the consumate conman, displaying the perfect amount of brains and flash to impress both Zuckerberg and those all-important venture capitalists, while still showing a weakness for partying and drugs. Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield) is both intelligent, yet also in over his head. He’s the movie’s most relatable person, a good, honest friend, but not the kind of guy you want as your CFO. David Fincher’s direction is probably the element that keeps this movie all together. The idea of framing the founding of Facebook within the narrative of multiple lawsuits against Zuckerberg is a wise one, and while Fincher’s unable to resort to his bag of visual tricks, he’s still able to put the movie together in such a way that it never slows or lags. I’m not sure if The Social Network is for everyone, but it’s a fascinating look at what may or may not be the genesis of one of the 21st century’s most divisive men and most important events. It also just happens to be one of the most interesting, well-written, and well-acted ensemble dramas of the year. It’s kind of rare for a movie to be funny, intelligent, entertaining, and dramatic, yet The Social Network (like the social network it is ostensibly depicting) is all of those things at once. If a movie could have a ‘like’ button, I’d check this one. US correspondent Ron Hogan isn’t an active user of Facebook, but he finds the subject fascinating. While Ron doesn’t Facebook much, you can find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi, or check out his blog, Subtle Bluntness.
title: “The Social Network Review” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-27” author: “Violet Alexander”
Our resident American-based reviewer, Ron Hogan, has had his say (he liked it). Friends have Twittered their reactions to advance, public screenings, unencumbered by embargo. It seems that every possible angle, every opinion, has been expressed. The Social Network is a film about Facebook, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. That’s the writer who created the big liberal bear hug, The West Wing, collaborating with the most restrained director from Hollywood’s pilfered roster of music video visionaries. With the likes of Zodiac (a sumptuous crime film with a long, mid-act ellipsis, and an inconclusive conclusion) and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (a flawed, inverted Forrest Gump substituting Baby Boomer nostalgia for textured Americana), Fincher has placed his full attentions on script, place and character, using his keen sense of production polish to lift his work out of its immediate cinematic context. He is one of the few directors working today who helms projects that gaze across broad horizons, from the classical past to the stylistic future. But The Social Network, while exhibiting the touch of a master filmmaker, is unmistakeably a film about the world we live in today. Over the course of this conversation in a boisterous Boston bar, Zuckerberg rants at his (short-lived, where the film’s concerned) girlfriend (an integral, yet mostly absent Rooney Mara). He is simmering with middleclass fury, over those fellow students that are almost guaranteed a prosperous future due to their membership of ‘final clubs’. But he’s determined. In the lead role, Jesse Eisenberg is marvellous. As a socially inept, slightly sociopathic nerd, Zuckerberg isn’t far from his roles in the likes of The Squid And The Whale, Zombieland or Adventureland, but his performance is remarkable. It is a withered, chiselled down refashioning of his familiar persona, replacing warmth and charm with something darker. It’s all in his laconic eyes, and his rapid-fire chatter. You don’t hate the guy, but he’s tough to like. And as he storms across campus, framed in a montage of crane shots over the opening credits, Fincher (and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth) elaborates without words on this twisted, driven figure. In a viciously pointed sequence, images of his mad dash coding are intercut with glances of a raucous, booze-filled orgy enjoyed by the more virile students, and we’re not entirely sure if it’s real, or a figment of his bitter imagination. This is only the beginning. Zuckerberg is the tragic protagonist in a tradition of many, with ambition and success upset by personal flaws. But key to his character, and central to Sorkin’s canny skewering of the Facebook generation (which, to be fair, is everyone, if my father’s appropriation of social media is anything to go by), is how he mirrors the darkest developments of our approach to the web, right up until a devastating final image of a person’s emotional hang-ups completely entangled with their online actions. The collapse of the private, the superficiality of relationships, the migration of personality into online profiles, the reinstatement of status, and the popularisation of flaunting your social circles and lives, they’re all here, subtly teased out of the compelling character drama that occurs on the film’s most literal level. In a way, its connection to fact is unimportant. The broad strokes are there. As the movie progresses through Facebook milestones, court hearings, purposeful typing, and the appearance of each member of the stunning cast, from Andrew Garfield’s wounded, boyish co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, and Justin Timberlake’s Loki-style chancer, Sean Parker, to a particularly impressive turn by Armie Hammer as both of the blue-blooded, antagonistic Winklevoss twins, but it doesn’t display ambitions of documenting truth. The comparison to Citizen Kane is already well worn, but it is useful, as that film’s exploration of power, monopoly, and the isolation arising from both in the era of newspaper barons is reflected here, albeit in a contemporary context, starring sandal-wearing computer nerds. Both Kane and Zuckerberg affected their respective worlds, and we live in the shadows of their example. You can read our Stateside review of The Social Network here.
