The Social Network Review

Director: David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland), Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Untitled Spider-Man Reboot), Justin Timberlake (Everyone should know who Justin Timberlake is), and Brenda Song (The Suite Life, College Road Trip)
Gross Revenue: $136,242,399 worldwide (As of 11/7/10)
Rotten Tomatoes TomatoMeter: 97%
IMDB Rating: 8.4

      Some movies are good.  Some movies are great.  Some movies touch the lives of the people that see it.  And then there are some movies, that define the generation when its made.  Easy Rider defined the counter-culture, easy-going attitude of the 60's.  Wall Street defined the excessive greediness of the 80's.  The Social Network defines the globalist, connected, virtually based world of the 21st century.  When people heard about the "Facebook Movie", they were skeptical and doubtful that anything good would come of it.  They were wrong.  The Social Network is one of the best of the year, if not the decade, and it lives up to all expectations.

   The Social Network features three simultaneous story lines, bouncing back and forth between TWO different lawsuits and the genesis of Facebook at Harvard University in 2003.  Mark Zuckerberg is a socially awkward and cold Harvard college student who is a genius and especially adept at computer science.  After his girlfriend suddenly breaks up with him, he creates a website that compares girls with each other as a way to "cope" with the pain of heartbreak.  After crashing Harvard's server, he sets out for something to top himself.  After hearing an idea from some fellow students to create an online network to link Harvard students, he creates "The Facebook", an online social network of Harvard students.  He starts an official business with his best friend Eduardo Saverin, an Economics major, and sets to expand the site.  After expanding to several other Ivy league schools, Mark forms an potentially dangerous friendship with "programming bad boy" Sean Parker, the creator of Napster.  Sean informally advises Mark on many aspects of creating the site, and helps kick starts Facebook's social revolution.  He goes to to start the world's largest social network, and making him the youngest self-made billionaire, despite alienating himself from all his friends.
     The Social Network is a movie that must be seen.  I was also initially skeptical of making a movie based on Facebook.  There were many questions I had during its production, the most important of which was "What is it going to be about"?  However, upon learning that Aaron Sorkin was writing the screenplay and David Fincher was directing, all my doubts vanished.  A better combination of writing and directing has not seen all year, and their two styles mesh perfectly.  Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue and sophisticated stortytelling style combined with Fincher's kinetic and relaxed directing style makes for a film that is both though-provoking and entertaining.
    The acting in this film is stupendous.  Jessie Eisenberg transforms himself into Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and is able to inject humanity and a sense of humor into a very unlikable character.  Justin Timberlake proves once again that he can do anything and gives a great performance as Sean Parker, showing dramatic depth that I didn't know he had in him.  Fincher uses a very clever technique to portray identical Winklevoss twins.  He used to separate actors to play the bodies, and then digitally painted over one actor's face with the other.  A very clever technique that allows the director more freedom in portraying the actions of these characters then just using traditional camera trickery methods.  However, the stand out performance belongs to British up and coming actor Andrew Garfield, who portrays Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.  His relationship with Mark is the emotional centerpiece to the movie, and he brings humanity to a very cold movie.  His care and compassion for Mark are noteworthy, even when Mark is acting selfish and being a terrible friend to him.  Watching him struggle to continue to do what's right and stay Mark's friend is truly heartbreaking, and he is easily the most sympathetic character in the movie.  Andrew Garfield, who has recently been cast as Peter Parker in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, does an amazing job, and his performance is worthy of an Academy Award nomination.
    Aaron Sorkin is amazing.  He is able to turn a movie about programming and lawsuits into an exciting melodrama about heartbreak, friendship, betrayal, revenge, and a lust for power.  Sorkin refuses to dumb down his story for an audience, and even though one oftentimes does not understand what the characters are talking about, it always entrancing and NEVER boring.  To show how much this movie kept me enthralled and on the edge of my seat, I never checked the time once during this movie.  I never wanted it to end, it was just so wonderful.  This is in large part due to Aaron Sorkin, who is a shoe-in to win the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay this year, and rightfully so, because it is a tale of heartache, revenge, betrayal, partying, sex, rebellion, and the limits of friendship, all wrapped into a movie about creating a website.  Now that takes talent.
    I knew this movie was going to be good going in, but I had no idea it would make such an impact on me.  This movie really made me think about what friendship truly means, and how much one can withstand, or how much one should be willing to withstand.  Eduardo was with Mark through thick and thin, even though he was cautious of Mark's friendship with Sean Parker, which ultimately ended up being faulty and dangerous, just as Eduardo predicted.  Mark betrays Eduardo through a series of backroom deals, and ends up losing everything.  And even after all that, Eduardo still helps Mark out by testifying for him in a lawsuit.  It's hard to imagine that such an exploration on the nature of friendship could come from a movie about creating a website, but that's Aaron Sorkin for you.  I'm also very intrigued by Mark Zuckerburg.  Despite being portrayed as a jerk, I can't help but wonder about his true motives for Faeebook.  Was it all in search of power and a way to prove himself to the Harvard elite, or was it just a way to impress a girl he was hopefully in love with, but just didn't know how to show it?  Just some thoughts.

     The Social Network is easily the movie of the year.  Nothing else this year (Except maybe Inception and Toy Story 3) has been so enjoyable as well as a smart and adept exploration of life.  It is sure to sweep this year's Academy Awards and I am betting on it to win Best Picture.  Everyone should see this movie.  Not only does it give you an inside look on the biggest social revolution since the creation of the telephone, it also is an exciting and dangerous story of betrayal and revenge, with some technical talk and wild parties to please the kids.  Seriously, this is the perfect movie.  The perfect script, the perfect direction, the perfect cast, everything about this movie is flawless.  I can't wait to watch it a second and third time, and continue to re watch it for years to come.  The Social Network is the best movie of the year, and one of my favorites of all time.  The Social Network is not only an intellectual history of the creation of Facebook, its also an exploration of friendship, betrayal, and revenge, due to to Aaron's Sorkin masterful screenplay, and powerhouse performances by the cast, particularly Andrew Garfield.  No other movie this year will make one's head hurt and one's heart ache as much The Social Network.  The best film of the year.  5/5
"You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies"