The Unfriending of Facebook's creators
One of the year’s most anticipated movies, The Social Network is ostensibly the origin story of Facebook, the most successful online social network of its kind. It’s also about the tumultuous events behind its creation and the resultant falling out of its founders. Based on the Ben Mezrich book The Accidental Billionaires, it has all the elements of a juicy drama: betrayal, scandal, smart people from privileged backgrounds doing stupid things, and gobs and gobs of money. Facebook, after all, made Zuckerberg the world’s youngest billionaire.
The Social Network marks the first collaboration between director David Fincher (Se7en, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War).
Fincher’s attention to detail is apparent everywhere: the lighting, production design, editing, the lived-in quality of the sets. Even the stylishly shot regatta scene bears his mark.
Sorkin’s stamp is there as well: everyone speaks very articulately and very fast. In fact, barring two scenes, the film is almost wall-to-wall dialogue.
The story goes that Columbia Pictures asked that the script be shortened, but Fincher timed Sorkin reading all the dialogue and when it came in under two hours (barely), Fincher told Columbia it was unnecessary; that it could be done.
Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg play Facebook founders Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg, respectively, in The Social Network. Lensing the project is cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, who last worked with Fincher on Fight Club. He’s also the son of renowned cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth (Blade Runner). Providing the score are Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and their work is a character in itself, wonderfully plying, tense, ambient/electronic sounds with lyrical piano notes.
In front of the camera, the talent is stellar as well. Jesse Eisenberg, go-to guy for the likable teenage neurotic as evidenced by his turns in Zombieland and next month’s Solitary Man, is amazing as Mark Zuckerberg, able to go from someone you’re rooting for in his dislike to being condescended to, to being an utter, clueless, insensitive, spineless jerk.
Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin as a sincere but out of his depth marketing and business end of the partnership. Garfield also appears in another of the year’s anticipated releases, the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and is about to become super-famous as the new Spider-Man.
Considering his work in The Social Network and Never Let Me Go, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were nominated for an Oscar early next year.
Armie Hammer is another standout, playing both Winklevoss twins engaged in a lawsuit against Zuckerberg.
Justin Timberlake plays Napster founder Sean Parker, who was an early investor in Facebook, and does well, playing a convincing douchebag.
It’s been said that a film just getting made is a minor miracle in itself, but a film this good is like a miracle on top of another miracle. In a year that includes Inception and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, The Social Network is arguably the best film of the year thus far, and that’s saying something.
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October 31 at 8 p.m., The Tioseco-Bohinc Film Series at Fully Booked High Street will screen Machete Maidens Unleased!, an Australian documentary about the foreign exploitation films produced here in the Philippines from the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. It comes from the creators of a similar documentary, Not Quite Hollywood, which featured ‘80s outlandish Australian cinema, and was a hoot, so this should be a lot of fun. Screening is free.
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Ramon De Veyra blogs irregularly at http://www.thesecuriousdays.com, but is more active on Twitter.
