Network traces origin of Facebook

MANILA, Philippines - Columbia Pictures brings to the screen The Social Network, the controversial and acclaimed film detailing the Harvard dorm room origins of social media megasite Facebook — the most revolutionary social phenomenon of the new century —which is valued today at a staggering $16-B.

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history. But for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

What follows is a drama rife with both creation and destruction; one that purposefully avoids a singular POV, but instead, by tracking dueling narratives, mirrors the clashing truths and constantly morphing social relationships that define our time.

Drawn from multiple sources, the film moves from the halls of Harvard to the cubicles of Palo Alto as it captures the visceral thrill of the heady early days of a culture-changing phenomenon in the making — and the way it both pulled a group of young revolutionaries together and then split them apart. 

In the midst of the chaos are Mark Zuckerberg, the brilliant Harvard student who conceived a website that seemed to redefine our social fabric overnight; Eduardo Saverin, once Zuckerberg’s close friend, who provided the seed money for the fledgling company; Napster founder Sean Parker who brought Facebook to Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists; and the Winklevoss twins, the Harvard classmates who asserted that Zuckerberg stole their idea and then sued him for ownership of it.

Each has his own narrative, his own version of the Facebook story — but they add up to more than the sum of their parts in what becomes a multi-level portrait of 21st Century success — both the youthful fantasy of it and its finite realities as well.

Opening soon in theaters, The Social Network is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.