I will be completely honest when I say that I was not as blown away by this as I expected to be. The Social Network is a widely praised biopic surrounding the legal and personal drama of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and the youngest living billionaire. Many people in the film criticism community are die-hard David Fincher fans that will defend his work until the end of time. While I did not think this film was bad by any standards (I actually really enjoyed it), it just simply lacked the exciting content that I expected it to provide. With some fantastic performances from the whole cast and a story that will anger you as much as it will impress you, this film is certainly worthy of telling the tale of the controversial CEO.
This film follows Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a young Harvard student in the early 2000's who is as skilled at entrepreneurial coding as he is unskilled at making personal connections with people. After he is dumped by his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara), he sets out on a pathetic revenge path that ends up leading him to the best idea of his life: a networking website that connects people from all across the world. This story and the supporting characters that *actually* make the film much more interesting are its best elements. Zuckerberg is flushed out as a character in this film as being highly unlikable and extremely volatile to practically everyone he comes in contact with. Which makes the fact that this is a true story that much more interesting. The entire irony of this central character is that he created a powerful monopoly of a website that connects people in the most social of ways across the globe while he himself was such a bleak asshole. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, based on Ben Mezrich's novel, is what really heightens this character development; although it's difficult to say that Zuckerberg ever really developed. Throughout this entire story, he remained the same ruthless, cold, and impersonal prick that he was from the beginning. What made his story so interesting was how it affected the people around him. Zuckerberg's business partner Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) used to be his closest friend and ally but was betrayed by Zuckerberg as soon as money and personal progress became involved. It's hard to believe that the CEO of Facebook got where he is today by being such an unbelievably horrible and petty person, but that's just how Fincher thinks the world works and he does a solid job of making the audience think that as well.
One of the best parts of the overall storytelling, however, was the fact that Zuckerberg's early days at Harvard and the creation of Facebook were just a part of the framed narrative. The way that Fincher takes the audience back and forth between past and present was amazing and was a very clever choice for the telling of this story. The performances in this film really make the story that much better as well. Eisenberg, Garfield, and Justin Timberlake as hotshot entrepreneur and founder of Napster Sean Parker were all amazing in their roles. The chemistry between these two makes their on-screen relationships so enthralling, through all of the love and hatred that went on between them. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score was another piece that made the creative aspect of this film so thrilling. Despite the dull and purposely bland color grading of this film, the music is what brought out the most amount of fury and frustration in the story. The main aspect of this film that really brought down my personal opinion, however, is that the directing is just honestly mediocre. Fincher does a great job of telling the story, but there seems to be no attempt at building to a climax or resolving the main character's issues. I understand that the main point of the story was that it lets people build their own opinions of the billionaire, but since the story was predictable, I thought there would be more build-up to the ending of the meeting scene. I did appreciate how quick and witty the dialogue was, in part due to Fincher's style, but the movie could have ended at any other time and I would not have been affected any more or less.
The Social Network is a very interesting look at the world's youngest billionaire, otherwise known as the world's most socially inept recluse. Eisenberg is incredible in the stale, cold role of the relentless CEO and the entire supporting cast is fantastic as well. Even though I still apparently fail to see what makes Fincher's directing so extraordinary, I overall loved this story and how it was told.
My Rating: ★★★½
No comments:
Post a Comment