The Social Network

Year Released: 2010

Total Runtime: 120 minutes

Directed: David Fincher

Produced: Kevin Spacey, Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, et al.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella

Oscars: Won. Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Best Editing, Best Original Score. Nominated. Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing.

IMDB Plot Summary: As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea, and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.

Context, Context, Context: What Created The Social Network, and Why It’s Still Relevant

The world before The Social Network. In 2010, Aaron Sorkin adapted the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich because he was drawn to its lurid and timely material. At the end of the year, Facebook would have 608 million users and Mark Zuckerberg would be worth $4 billion. At the time, the explosion of Facebook was viewed as nothing short of a technological and societal miracle. However, Sorkin didn’t just see recent facts about an invention – he saw a timeless tale of greed, friendship, betrayal, power, and transformation. This is the stuff of Gatsby, The Godfather, and Citizen Kane. Sorkin ran fast and loose with the truth, partially to create his perfect story and partially to avoid getting sued by Zuckerberg. Executive producer Kevin Spacey got his friend and collaborator David Fincher attached to the project, creating one of the most fantastic writer/producer/director mixes in recent history. Fincher, a master of the craft, elevated Sorkin’s near-perfect script and the film’s tone doesn’t just caution us about Sorkin’s themes; it cautions us about social media and the companies that create it.

The legacy of The Social Network. Unfortunately, this may be one of the last times we see a major studio gamble on a film like this; after all, there was no Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2010. Zuckerberg continues to denounce this film for its deliberate misrepresentation of himself, the facts, and what it says about his creation. The third of those items is why this movie continues to be important; as of June 2020, there are 2.6 billion users and Mark Zuckerberg’s worth recently peaked at $92 billion. However, we’re having a reckoning with social media that we simply weren’t having in 2010. Zuckerberg was called before Congress to testify on how Facebook and user data may have shaped the 2016 election; there is scientific evidence that social media has created heightened anxiety and depression in the generations that grow up with it; and currently there is fierce debate about social media’s imperative to censor posts from even the President if they are too incendiary or misleading. On a less specific level, a “feel bad” true story that still portrays financial success has aged terrifically well over the last decade.

2010. As a quick aside, 2010 was one of the best movie years of recent memory and I’ll quickly list 10 of its most notable films: The Social Network, Inception, Shutter Island, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, The King’s Speech, The Town, The Fighter, 127 Hours, and True Grit. If 4 of them had debuted in the same year, we would call it a good year, but they all made 2010 beyond compare.

Awards – but not enough. Looking back on it, this film was downright prophetic, and with a few notable exceptions was rightly recognized in its time. It became the third film after Schindler’s List and L.A. Confidential to sweep the “Big Four” Critic’s Choice awards. Worldwide, it grossed nearly $250 million, a solid amount for a film of this caliber. At the Golden Globes, it won for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Score. Its trailer featuring a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” even won some award for trailers. But at the Academy Awards, the trophies for Best Picture and Best Director went to The King’s Speech, which has aged horribly. While I accept arguments for Colin Firth beating Jesse Eisenberg in the Acting category, The King’s Speech winning both awards instead of this film is unforgivable. Honestly, when was the last time you thought about The King’s Speech? When was the last time a slow, inspiring story captured the 2010’s mood? And when is the next time you’re going on some form of social media?

The Story and its Characters

Sorkin’s screenplay. This is one of the best screenplays as I’ve ever encountered, succeeding on every level save one: a lack of fully developed female characters in this film. That aside, this is incredibly close to perfection. The dialogue is profound when it wants to be, incredibly funny when it chooses to be, the words are weaponized in the film’s constant argument scenes and is consistently smart and insightful. There are often multiple conversations going on within a scene, and every word matters. The script reveals character motivations in a way that seems both simple and natural. As I mentioned earlier, the themes and character arcs are timeless and worthy of a 3-hour film, but Sorkin and Fincher managed to compress the story into under 2 hours. The film’s structure is ambitious but perfectly pulled off; when we first cut forward in time to the depositions and realize everything we’ve been watching to date is actually testimony, the entire film changes. The cutting between locations and voiceover testimony into the scenes that the testimony is describing is seamless, and the technical aspects of the film do a lot to help this, but it starts with the screenplay. The structure and words dazzle, but my favorite aspect of this story is its ability to take a very in-the-moment story and create a timeless parable. Timberlake’s Sean Parker and Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin become something akin to an angel and devil on Zuckerberg’s shoulders battling for his soul. The Final Clubs and Winklevoss twins represent the “old money” concept that Mark rejects for Silicon Valley entrepreneurialism. The “gain power and success but lose your soul” arc has never been done as concisely yet as fully satisfactory in other movies.

The performances. The performances here are crucial. With the quick pace of this film, we only have so much time to learn who these characters are and how they feel and view the world – and most of this is revealed through arguments or conversations about a computer company. Justin Timberlake does fine as the “wild card” Sean Parker, who essentially seduces Mark into channeling his darker Silicon Valley side. Rooney Mara perfectly sets the tone for the movie as the girl who dumps Mark that the audience can perfectly relate to. Armie Hammer is great as both the Winklevoss twins in a groundbreaking use of CGI that still looks terrific, but it’s great to revisit him in this role given the career that he’s been having. Andrew Garfield is absolutely terrific as Eduardo Saverin, who is the closest this film offers to a “hero”, and goes beyond serving as Mark’s conscience; he generates some of the film’s best scenes, especially when he gets his shares taken away and recounts it in deposition. The most important performance is also its most lauded: Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg. He’s doing so much and generating so many feelings in the audience. There are moments where his face creates a “lost puppy” and we feel bad for him, and we don’t like to watch Sean Parker turn him to the dark side. His antisocial behavior doesn’t seem to be his fault, but when he maliciously blogs about his ex-girlfriend he encapsulates an awfully specific type of internet user that very much exists today. In less than two hours of screen time, we pity him, cheer for him, laugh at his antics, cheer against him, hate him, respect him, and fear what he represents. A once-in-a-lifetime performance for sure.

Technicalities

Perfection. I’ve come a long way without discussing David Fincher, but that’s no longer possible. He has a track record for making movies that weren’t properly appreciated in their time but later come to be hailed as masterpieces (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac), as well as being one of the most forward-thinking yet artistically gifted presences in Hollywood; he gave Netflix its first original content when he created House of Cards in 2013, and that first season is still better than almost anything Netflix has produced since. He also has a reputation for being a perfectionist, demanding sometimes a hundred takes of scenes in order to wear down his actors and capture their most raw emotions, as well as making sure that the lighting, composition, and later editing can create the perfect scene. In The Social Network, this is executed on one of the best screenplays in recent memory, so the end result is as close to a perfectly-made film as you can imagine and is utterly absorbing to watch. The editing Oscar is so well-deserved, because this film unfolds at a breakneck pace but still gives the viewer exactly the information and scenes they need to see. My favorite aspect must be the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails (they also recently scored HBO’s Watchmen). They managed to capture the film’s themes of isolation, sadness, anger, technology, and compromised ethics in the form of sound, and the score is nearly as intoxicating as the film itself.

John’s Highlight Reel

· Opening break-up. Rooney Mara’s character never existed, and this scene is made up, but it is one of the best scenes of dialogue ever. The actors juggle multiple conversations with the camera capturing the right facial expressions at the right times. Given that this becomes the motivation for Zuckerberg, the stakes are high for this scene to be meaningful and it delivers.

· Ranking girls. Just after getting dumped, Mark blogs angrily – revealing Facebook’s “origins” as coming from an angry looking to troll the girl he dumped him, a concept that has aged beautifully in today’s world. He also creates a website to compare Harvard women to each other, which is directly cut with a Final Club party getting out of hand – where Mark would rather be, but instead he is creating his own form of social power. The score bolsters the feeling of him gaining momentum, but at a dreadful cost.

· Leading my clients on. In a sequence that highlights the film’s ability to crosscut perfectly, the Winklevoss’ lawyer reads a series of emails detailing Mark avoiding meeting with the Winklevoss twins while creating the earliest form of “TheFacebook”. Moving from past to present, and from Mark to the twins throughout the scene is done seamlessly and thrillingly.

· Groupies, Stanford. We’re given one final scene with Rooney Mara, who gives the most important lines of the film: “The internet isn’t written in pencil Mark, it’s written in ink. You pour your snide bullshit from a dark room because that’s what the angry do nowadays”. Shortly after this, Mark decides to expand to several schools including Stanford – and the film suddenly cuts there and introduces us to Timberlake’s Sean Parker, and we immediately understand his lifestyle and what he represents. Another treat: the girl he’s with claims that “TheFacebook” is addicting because she’s on it 3 times a day. What an innocent time.

· Larry Summers. In a movie full of occasionally funny smartasses, this is the most smartass and funny scene. A great dose of comic relief, and this one happened in real life.

· Sushi with Sean. This is our first scene with Sean and Eduardo butting heads over how Facebook should operate, and by proxy for the position of power as being in Mark’s ear. The pounding score throughout perfectly characterizes the different energy of Sean Parker and his lifestyle.

· Sean in the club. This scene (in frustratingly realistic fashion) perfectly conveys a conversation inside a large, loud nightclub. In a move of brilliance, Fincher had his actors yell their lines to each other while filming, then added the music in post-production. Another excellent aspect of this scene: pay attention to when the camera is closest on Timberlake’s face, since this is the scene where he fully wins Mark over.

· .03%, Party bust. Far and away this film’s climax, the past/present crosscutting is at its most powerful in this scene. Eduardo recalling his betrayal in deposition crossed with its portrayal has become the most iconic scene in an already iconic movie. The film continues directly in the past when Sean Parker is busted for drugs at a sorority party he went to with some interns; Mark chose wrong and is now out of friends, and “the past” timeline is officially wrapped up.

· Mark alone. Immediately after the previously described scene, we are given the film’s epilogue. Rashida Jones’ character, who has been serving as an audience proxy during the hearings, delivers the film’s final word on who Mark Zuckerberg is: not an asshole, but trying to be. The final minutes of the films are masterful, with Mark sending a Facebook friend request to Rooney Mara’s character, constantly refreshing the page for a reply that isn’t going to come. In the background, an upbeat classic rock song about being a rich man begins to play, but Mark’s expression of longing and loneliness paints a more dour picture.

Came for _____, Stayed for ______

The Facebook story. I didn’t see this film when it was released in theaters, but plenty of people were talking about “The Facebook movie” and was vaguely aware of the awards it was winning so it felt important. I didn’t discover it until my freshman year of college and was completely blown away. The structure of balancing the deposition scenes alongside portraying the events the characters are describing was breathtaking, and what a cool way to perfectly re-create a true story – right?

The Social Network. Once I got over the fact that what I was seeing in the film was far from the truth, I was able to view it as intended: an American parable tackling timeless themes that has aged like a fine wine in the last 4 years. When I watched my freshman year, I realized that I had encountered one of the most perfectly concocted films I’ve ever seen: the dialogue is savage fun, the acting fits the story perfectly and inspires the right mix of feelings, the pace is incredible, the shots are perfectly created, and the score supports every one of those aspects. “Based on a true story” (but taking some liberties) has never been better.