The Social Network, 2010
The Social Network - the modern day drama. Its sassy, witty, sharp and totally snarky and pretentious, yeah just the way we like it. I'm a Gen Y I'm not going to lie we are snarky bunch at the best of times and say what you may about the youth but this film was to put it simply - freakin' awesome. It was intense from the opening scene with the lead Mark Zuckerberg (just in case you missed it the creator of Facebook apparently) and his then girlfriend Erica Albright. Honestly though if you blinked for few seconds I think you would have missed it - that's how fast paced this entire movie was. I have seen some fast paced movies in my rather short lifetime but this has to take the cake. I don't want to sound like I'm writing an English essay here but I feel that the speed of the movie is so perfectly paralleled with internet and of course the speed in which the world works now. Thus unsurprisingly this no relaxed lazy Sunday afternoon drama.
So going back the opening scene (a paragraph later and I'm still on about the opening scene) we the audience is introduced to Mark Zuckerberg and immediately I don't like him and yet I'm intrigued. He is obsessed, crazed, nerdy, timid boy who is completely snarky BUT a totally genius (what a babe). After bitter break up with Erica Mr. Zuckerberg does what any young boy would do - get drunk and write some nasty things about your ex. But of course he does it incredible fashion, instead of writing horrible things about your ex and then sending it to her, he blogs and make sure that it's floats in the interwebs for eternity. But of course Mr.Zuckerberg is not done in his drunken state - he decided to hack into the Harvard school site and creates a site where male students can rate female students and compare them to other female students, you know in a completely sexist yet in slightly glorified way. So the next 15 minutes or so was followed Zuckerberg hacking into the Harvard system and of course there was bunch technical jargon thrown around and because I'm not computer nerd I felt like he was speaking in codes. But it didn't matter what he was saying as long you got what was happening in the end. So with creation of FaceMash (the sexist rating site) Zuckerberg gets into ridiculously amounts of trouble and notoriety. And therefore he is approached by the Winklevoss twins and their friend Divya Narendra, you know the stereotypical Harvard students - beautiful, athletic and rich and although as intelligent as they are, they need Zuckerbeg the master of all computer nerds and did I mention a genius to help them create what will eventually lead to Facebook.
So with that premise the movie follows the raise (and I would like to say fall but that hasn't happened yet) of Zuckerberg and Facebook (or originally called The Facebook). With the finanical aid of his best friend Eduardo Saverin (a rather cute Jewish boy) the two create Facebook.
The film is set out like a flashback as currently Zuckerberg is being sued by his BFF and the twins- their friend. So amongst the settlement talks Zuckerberg recalls how he got to where he is now.
Look, like I said before there is something about Zuckerberg that is incredible annoying, arrogant and really snarky and generally he is an asshole, so there was little sympathy that could be given to him when he is being sued by two different parties. Honestly I thought he deserved what he got as he did kind of screw both the twins and his BFF over. Despite his arrogance there are some moments where it seems that it was just a little too much for him to handle. Basically this is simply a classic tale of how money and success can ruin relationships and lives just played in modern context. Thus questions of friendship and loyalty play central to the story of the movie. Zuckerberg is never the hero and is never truly a victim nor was he a villain which kind of leaves his character in cloud ambiguity. But I like that about him I like the fact that you can't really figure out what kind of person he is. The real hero in my unbiased opinion would be the character of Eduardo (the BFF), the loyal friend being screwed over by Mark would have been a low and painful blow and if I was in his position I would be pissed too.
The best part of the film would be the screenplay - it was so smartly written and incredibly entertaining to watch and David Fincher (the director) is of course another genius therefore the movie was bound to impress. The role of Mark Zuckerberg played Jesse Eisenberg was well casted - not to sound cheesy but it seemed that Eisenberg was made to play this part. He looked and sounded and acted the part so well.
I know it may be a little snarky at times and can be confusing a lot of the time but it's worth the endearment despite its slightly weak ending. But don't let that discourage you because this smart, sassy drama piece should not be missed. And of course it is a movie therefore the element of truth is probably blurred and I guess we probably won't ever really know how Facebook was created but the fact it was somewhat based on a true story made it even more exciting. It was truly a movie of it's time.
Now that I have started giving ratings this is my rating for the Social Network which is 8.5 out of 10.
Here's the trailer for those who haven't seen it yet
Really Long Link
Peace out
Samira =D
I'm the CEO, Bitch!
