Film Review by Emma Champion: The Social Network (2010), starring Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield

In David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) declared to his pre-9/11 Project Mayhem delegates that their generation had “no great war; no great depression.  Our great war is a spiritual war.  Our great depression…is our lives.”  With that sentence, an entire age band were marked and identified as a group lost and expendable in human history; restless and longing for purpose as well as recognition.

Happily, eleven years on, Generation X is clawing back a little bit of credibility thanks largely to developments in technology and the growth of the World Wide Web; and, once again, David Fincher wishes to draw our attention to it.

The Social Network (2010) sees young entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), embroiled in two major lawsuits.  One with a former investor in Zuckerberg’s business who happens to be his ex-best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) – looking to protect his investment after an attempt to freeze him out; and another with brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (astonishingly, both played by Arnie Hammer without arousing any suspicion of special effects tinkery), and their associate, Divya Narendra (Max Minghella), who claim that Zuckerberg’s online venture was based on their ideas which he stole from them.  The film takes us back on the timeline, showing the conception of the project and the events which brought it into play.

Oh – and did I mention that Zuckerberg’s business just happens to be Facebook – the most successful and lucrative social networking site ever created?  No?  Well, erm, it’s Facebook.  And it’s worth billions of dollars.  Facebook is now live and accessible all over the world – its revenue generated by advertising – and boasts over five hundred million users.

At age twenty-six, Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world today.  At one point, Laura (Aria Noelle Curzon), relatively new to the law firm dealing with Zuckerberg’s case and sitting in on the interviews, advises Zuckerberg to “pay them (the plaintiffs) – in the grand scheme of things, it’s a parking ticket.”  We are later told that the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra received a settlement of sixty-five million dollars.  If that amount to Mark Zuckerberg is what a parking fine would be to us, it is safe to say the man is, shall we say, financially secure.  It is also Laura who, upon discussing the global reach of Facebook, observes to Zuckerberg, “Bosnia.  They don’t have roads, but they have Facebook.”  It exemplifies both the absurdity and the necessity for which the internet has become renowned in the modern world.

What unfolds before the audience is a sharp, smart and inspiring piece of cinema.  With a script as sharp as an upturned drawing pin from West Wing creator, Aaron Sorkin (famed for penning the screenplays for such films as Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) and A Few Good Men (1992)), The Social Network grabs your attention from the get-go and refuses to relent.  It is dialogue-heavy, but the weight of the words never feels like a burden on the back, so to speak.  Sorkin sprinkles shiny vocabulary over his audience like vermicelli atop a freshly-made trifle, as apposed to making them feel as though they are trudging through mud; so don’t let the amount of talking put you off.

Leading man Eisenberg’s understated and controlled portrayal of Zuckerberg is impressive indeed, and leaves the viewer wondering whether the real Zuckerberg has the same rapier-sharp astuteness in real life.  There is an attention-grabbing turn here from Brit actor, Andrew Garfield as Saverin; his American accent is flawless and the camera clearly loves him.  It is heart-warming to know that his fantastic performance as Jack Burridge in John Crowley’s Boy A (2007) did not go unnoticed by Hollywood.  It is also nice to see Joseph Mazzello, seen here as  Facebook programmer, Dustin Moskovitz – you may remember him as the impressionable little boy who gets thrown from an electric fence in a key scene from Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993).  The real surprise here, however, is an outstanding Justin Timberlake as Napster founder, Sean Parker – Zuckerberg’s idol and eventual co-owner of Facebook.  He seems to relish the opportunity to play a character so vocal in his opinions and loquacious about his experiences.  At one point, Saverin verbalises his doubts about Parker’s reliability as a potential business partner, adding that he has read some unflattering material on Parker in the press.  Parker retaliates, saying, “Do you know what I’ve read about you?”  He then mouths the word “nothing” with a smug grin on his face, putting Saverin in his place as an as-yet unknown name in the business world.

Fincher has done an excellent job with his source material – namely the book entitled The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich – on which the film is based.  He draws us into the world of university nicely – beginning with drinks in a pub aptly-named The Thirsty Scholar, and followed by a tour of the grounds at Harvard throughout the title sequence.  It was Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail (1998) who said “Don’t you love…the fall?  It makes me want to buy school supplies.” The Autumnal setting of The Social Network does just that – the sight of a university campus with landscape which sports trees shedding yellow leaves and students walking on rain-soaked pavements to their prospective classes with their backpacks on their shoulders will have you waxing nostalgic about your own student experience.  Also, take note of a beautifully-shot rowing scene; blurred backgrounds and foregrounds cause the boats to appear miniature, reminiscent of a model village.  This creates an almost Brechtian distance between the action and the audience, and is the only time the intensity of the dialogue is lifted for a brief, yet surreal, moment.  Also, this deliberate, visual shrinkage serves to undermine the Winklevoss’s sporting achievements in comparison to Zuckerberg’s digital endeavours, which may just have been the director’s intent.

If there is anything negative to say about this film, it would only be to say that it is, from time-to-time, saturated in American college politics – talk of Final Groups and Fraternities may be lost on UK audiences.  However, it does little to tarnish a film which illustrates how much power young people have in this digital age, and how much possibility lay before graduates like Zuckerberg, or, indeed, anyone with a savvy disposition, with these abundant tools at their disposal.

“Private behaviour is a relic of a time gone by,” states Timberlake’s Parker.  In a world where we, as a society, volunteer our personal details and innermost thoughts to sites such as Facebook, this declaration could not be truer.  This film is a testament to modern society and depicts a moment in the history of modern communication which it would be criminal to overlook.

Star Rating: ****

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