MyRating: YYYYYDirector: David Fincher
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Rooney Mara, Brenda Song
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language
A smart movie about a smart man that has revolutionized the way we communicate socially. So significant, it may have changed our culture. Yes, a swift from how people used to interact by meeting each other face to face and pat on the backs, to a world where people seem to satisfy by “chatting” with each other in the virtual world, is definitely a change in human culture. Never before sitting in front of a lonely computer can “add” you incredible amount of “friends” in a short period of time, than what you can do by walking and introducing yourself on the streets, or hanging out at a club. It’s the world where the difference between “share” about your life and narcissism is just as thin as paper. And expressing yourself is just as simple as “write on” your “wall” and “post” it, which is actually giving a “notification” to the world that you need attentions. It’s the society where silence is no more gold, instead, people appreciate others who like to “comment” on their never ending “status”, or “like” whatever silly things they said, or secretly “send” them “a message” showing that you care. It’s the era where privacy is no privacy at all. Your personal "profile" and "info" are for public consumptions, as you can “update" your so called ongoing online daily biography, and “upload” tons and tons of your “photos” and “tag” them to the whole world with pride, including maybe even your most personal and intimate ones.
Facebook is a phenomenon. It’s not the first social network website ever created, as there are Friendster and MySpace, which were introduced much earlier, but it is definitely the biggest, the most popular, and the most sustainable one. Founded and first launched in February 4, 2004 by a Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, together with his college buddies Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, by July 2010 the members of Facebook has reached 500 million users.
The story of The Social Network is revolving around the earlier days of Facebook and the lawsuits following years afterwards (told in both backward and forward), spiced up with a love and hate relationship between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), a fictional character, who ignites the creation of Facebook at the first place. It all started with “Facemash”, a website created by Zuckerberg in October 2003 by hacking the Harvard's computer network system to download thousands of students' ID images. The female students' photos are then put together in pairs in the website, where male students can choose which one of the two is more attractive. That was the beginning of the popularity of Mark Zuckerberg as an inventor, as well as a trouble maker.
The talent of this whiz kid is unbearable. When he and his friends created "Thefacebook" (later on named only "Facebook"), an online social networking website initially exclusive to Harvard University students, the website suddenly 'booms' more than what they've expected and quickly spreads, not only within Harvard, but also to other colleges, and then even crosses to other countries. And the rest is history. Initially invested with only US$ 1,000, the company is suddenly worth US$ 15 billion in just 4 years time.
However, behind the success, there are conflicts, followed by million dollars lawsuits. Zuckerberg is sued by the Winklevoss Twins, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) for stealing their ideas from their not yet launched date website named HarvardConnection, in which they have a deal with Zuckerberg to help them created this website, before Facebook was invented. The success also brings the damage to the partnership and friendship between Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), especially after Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), a young entrepreneur who founded Napster, takes a big role to transform Facebook into real business. The dispute between this two best friends also ended with Saverin suing Zuckerberg to the court. So for Mark Zuckerberg, there was a price to pay for the success of Facebook, which was to lose friends.
This was an outstanding movie with interesting storyline and smart dialogs, thanks to the great screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. The script was adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 nonfiction book The Accidental Billionaires. The film was also so exciting to watch due to the brilliant direction from David Fincher (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac & The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), with its solid characterization, dynamic pictures, and well paced rhythm from the beginning till the end. Fincher has proved himself one more time that he is a director who could continuosly make great movies from not so easy materials to develop. The Social Network was definitely not an easy material to tell (it is interesting as everybody knows Facebook, but not easy to tell it in a captivating way), however both Fincher and Sorkin did it just right. The result was a beautiful and adorable film. Both of them definitely need recognitions for their works on this movie.
The most interesting things in this movie were the solid characters and the great performances from the actors, plus the clever dialogs they threw at each other. Jesse Eisenberg proved that he was the perfect choice for the role, as he was successfully and awesomely personified the character he played. I don't know how is Mark Zuckerberg in the real life, but the way Eisenberg thinks, speaks, and behaves has created the character I needed to know about Mark. His character was cool, smart, a good debater, could be pain-in-the-ass, but at the same time able to gather our symphaties that afterall he is just a human being. The dialogs and argumentation between Eisenberg and the Lawyer near the end of the movie was superb, very well written dialogs and very well said by Eisenberg. While Andrew Garfield also showed his good acting capabilities, as his character was the emotion of this movie, and he played it well. It was a pleasant surprise to know that the next Spider-man could act. After watching him here, I am convinced now that the Spider-man's producers have made the right choice by putting him in the spider suit in 2012. Even Justin Timberlake gave a good performance as Sean Parker, a flamboyant entrepreneur who likes to talk about himself. These three central characters and their conflicts really made this movie fun to watch. The Social Network was definitely one of the best movie this year. A solid and entertaining one.
What made this movie so relevant was also because it was released in the right time. Facebook is on its peak popularity now. The movie is also an untold story about the founder that not many people know, even though parts of the story was fictional. Other more thing that made it so excited when watching the movie was because we know well about Facebook and how to operate it, so when the movie told the invention of the Facebook's features one by one, it's like opening a history book that we already know.
The bad thing is, it’s addicted. Online social network did, just like cigarettes and drugs, but we just don’t mind. If you are smiling and agreeing with what I said, then most probably you are one of those addicted ones, who likes to do all the things that I said in the beginning of this review. And if you do not agree with me, then you can “poke” me as much as you like. (MJ)
