The Social Network

I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, so when I heard that he was behind the script for the new movie about Facebook I was immediately intrigued and eager to go see it. Sorkin did not disappoint. His writing is solid and his dialogue leaps off of the screen just as it once did on The West Wing and Sports Night. This is a great story which is a lot of fun to watch and to just listen to. There is a lot of wit in these conversations flying at the audience at 55 mph.

Jesse Eisenberg gives one heck of a performance as Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg. He is an asshole, but a very unique and compelling asshole which we as an audience love to watch. It takes a really spot on balancing act to pull off a role like this, and Eisenberg did fantastically. There’s also some great acting by Garfield and even Justin Timberlake who fits his role as hotshot Napster guru Shaun Parker very well.

Right off the start, Fincher’s direction drew me in by creating a wonderful setting and atmosphere and making me feel like I was right three on campus at Harvard. Then we are drawn into Mark’s life as he struggles for recognition and a chance to prove his arrogance. The movie does a great job of giving him an interesting motivation behind his ambitions and I love they way that they bring it right back to that in the final shot.

This is not only a compelling story chock full of genius writing, it is a thought-provoking story at the business world of the new century and the ingenuity of youth in this new information age. We get the impression that something like Napster or Facebook could only be created by someone as young and savvy as Zuckerberg and that the future can now be written by anyone with creativity and the desire to do so. If this movie has any flaw, its that it begins to lose steam near the end, but that is a very minor flaw considering the greatness which surrounds it.
9.5/10