The Social Network Review

Part of you just doesn’t want to believe, nay, simply can’t believe, that “The Social Network,” a movie about Facebook (Facebook?!) could be good. I know where you’re coming from, I came from the same place. But let me tell you, “The Social Network” isn’t just good, it’s flat out one of the best films of the year.

There are no explosions, no shoot outs, no car chases and hardly a beautiful girl in sight, but the David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) directed vehicle does the one thing that audiences demand of a movie: it keeps them interested.

Here’s a secret, this movie isn’t really about Facebook – it’s just a movie that happens to be about Facebook. “The Social Network” is, in truth, a character driven film that focuses on Jesse Eisenberg in his mesmerizing turn as Mark Zuckerberg.

Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg is a young man who’s fast talking ways and inability to make eye contact with even his best friend borders on Asperger’s, and who is cut off from the world by his own genius.

Acceptance and exclusivity, or, more specifically, acceptance into exclusivity, is the thing that the Zuckerberg of the movie dreams of more than anything. He is obsessed with gaining admission into a Harvard Final Club (those ultimate bastions of old American aristocracy, and the farthest thing from the quiet Jewish frat to which he belongs).

Armie Hammer, aided by copious CGI, plays both Winklevoss twins, representatives of the very nobility that Zuckerberg hopes to join. They row crew, belong to Harvard’s most prestigious Final Club and consider themselves as honor-bound “gentlemen of Harvard.” In fact, the thing that seems to interest Zuckerberg the most about Facebook, at least at the outset, is that it would exclusive; he would finally have the power to confirm or ignore whoever had so humbly requested to be his friend.

How much of this is truly Mark Zuckerberg, just as how much of this entire movie is truly the truth, is up for debate.

“The Social Network” portrays Mark Zuckerberg as a man with far greater talent than any of us, but also with faults that run deeper. He wounds both intentionally and unintentionally, at times through his keen intelligence and at times through his occasionally awe inspiring obliviousness. He is prone to petty jealousies. He is easily wounded. He is susceptible to the charm of an industry bad boy, Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake with such verve that he shoots the movie full of charisma anytime he’s on screen). He is arrogant. And he is insecure.

Yet above all, he is a real person, and that is what makes both him, and the film, so ultimately compelling. Throughout the movie it becomes clear that Zuckerberg is a man troubled by the things he has done to other people to get to where he is, but too proud to apologize.

In the end, this is a movie that offers few hard facts, but is spellbinding in its own right, as a study of one flawed man-child trying to do something no one else had ever done.