Courtesy of www.socialnetwork.com
With more than 500 million users collectively spending more than 700 billion minutes per month on one Web site, Facebook has become more than just a social network. It has become a corporation, worth billions of dollars. A movie was bound to be made about the creation of such a product and with that, there is The Social Network.
Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club) and starring Jessie Eisenberg (Zombieland), The Social Network brings to light how Facebook was created and the drama that followed.
Mark Zuckerberg, a young Harvard computer-programmer, creates The Facebook when the Winklevoss twins, fellow students at Harvard, approach him to help them build an exclusive online social network for Harvard. Branching off of their idea, Zuckerberg then creates a perfected version of the twin’s Web site with his roommates and calls it The Facebook.
The Winklevoss twins inevitably sue Mark Zuckerberg, along with his best friend and business partner, Eduardo Savrin. The film flashes between the two court proceedings and the period when Mark is creating and building Facebook.
Although this is a little confusing at first, as the film moves on, the audience begins to settle into the pace of the movie. As scenes from the court proceedings are shown, flashback scenes reference times brought up in the courtroom, showing you a bunch of clueless college kids who are thrust into a world of business where they can only guess what to do next.
Sometimes witty, sometimes dramatic, the film holds itself together with some incredible performances. Jessie Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg perfectly as a stuck-up genius and as the film progresses and the reasons for him being sued are revealed, it seems as if he almost deserves to be stuck-up.
When Zuckerberg begins to have doubts about the business aspect of his Web site, Sean Parker, the creator of Napster played by Justin Timberlake, tells him that if he makes the right decision it could be the ‘business decision of a generation.’ Parker was right, as Facebook almost seems to be a requirement for most socially active people these days.
The film’s events, although most likely dramatized, are highly entertaining. It could very well be one of the best films of the year, as it ties in a great story, great performances, and great directing all in one film.