Review of The Social Network

My buddy Mac, who has reviewed a couple movies for this blog in it's three-year existence, just sent me a very positive review of The Social Network directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin.

So, here it goes:

Many fans of David Fincher became fans after watching movies like ‘Seven’ and ‘Fight Club’. There was something about those movies that was very dark and bleak like some sort of haunted Film Noir. Something else you will notice about those two particular Fincher films is the fact that there are almost no exterior scenes with sunshine.

Dark.

That’s the feeling you get while watching the opening credits of David Fincher’s new film: ‘The Social Network’. The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross sets the tone and you realize you’re in for something serious. Aaron Sorkin’s script about the creators of Facebook is based off of the book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich, which I’m sure is just the one sided story of the truth. However it serves for interesting cinema.

The two main characters of course are Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the two undergrads at Harvard who started Facebook seven years ago from their dorm room. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a boy genius who can talk faster than Martin Scorsese but if he was graded on his social skills (especially with girls) he would get a D. Saverin seems more sympathetic and likeable but it’s what Fincher and Sorkin do with these two that makes you feel uneasy and fascinated at the same time.

Then, you throw the best performance Justin Timberlake has ever done in his life on top of that and you feel like you are definitely watching one of the best movies of the year. I personally don’t mind J.T. but I wasn’t expecting him to be all that. But he takes the character of Sean Parker, the young co-founder of Napster who seeks out Zuckerberg and Saverin after discovering Facebook, and knocks it out of the park. You realize that Sean Parker plays a major part of the story line and thus becomes an important character and if not done right could collapse the movie. So, I half to give it up to Timberlake because he was solid as a rock and the acting in this movie was top-shelf all around so if J.T. was bad he would’ve stood out like a sore thumb but he held his own and then some with every actor he shared a scene with.

There are over 600 million people on Facebook today and most of this entire story takes place before 2006 before I even heard of Facebook. The richest people today are the TechGods, the guys who started Google, the guys who started Yahoo, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on…so even if ‘The Social Network’ is not 100% accurate I bet my bottom dollar that this story is similar to other computer geeks who struck it big in the technology world and then were too socially inept to save their only honest friendships from greed and jealousy.

Fincher has brought The Social Network to light and you will probably see him walking the red in his dark tuxedo this award season and watch out because there’s a good chance there won’t be any sunshine on Oscar day either.

Thanks Mac!