The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network (2010)
Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Josh Pence, Max Minghella, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones

One-sentence summary: This is the story of how Mark Zuckerberg came to create Facebook.

Review: "Every creation myth needs a devil."

That line is spoken by Marilyn Delpy (Rashida Jones) in the final scene of the movie. If The Social Network is the creation myth of Facebook, then who is the devil? The obvious answer is Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), of course, but I don't think it's so cut and dry.

And that is why I love The Social Network.

Facebook is a MacGuffin when it comes to the film. The real story is not the intricacies of Facebook or how it grew into the site that it is today. What the movie focuses on are the people surrounding Facebook, and how creating a site ostensibly about social networking and staying in contact destroyed a friendship. It's a tragedy, but no one dies. It's Shakespearean, but no one is reciting lines of poetry. (Though they are saying the brilliantly-written lines from Aaron Sorkin. "Winklevi" is genius.) To call it "that Facebook movie" does it a disservice.

For a good part of the movie, Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole genius. The movie does a good job of explaining why, though: Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) is one reason. Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) is another. Erica is The Girl Who Got Away, the one Mark lost because he couldn't understand that he didn't have to act like an asshole to get people to respect him. Eduardo is the guy Mark wishes he could be, so to "destroy" him he slowly starts cutting Eduardo out of more and more of the decision-making when it comes to Facebook to the point where Eduardo's shares in Facebook get diluted to less than 1%. Mark betrays Eduardo in the truest sense, and all because the devil slipped in in the form of Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). Sean comes around with his silver tongue and flashy know-how of the ins and outs of Silicon Valley and pushes Mark to betray Eduardo. Mark knows he made a mistake when Sean gets caught up in legal trouble, but by then it's too late. You can't un-betray someone.

Those involved with the movie--and those with first-hand knowledge of what really happened during Facebook's inception--say that the film isn't 100% accurate, and I think it's okay that it's not what really happened. As succinctly summarized in the quote above, The Social Network is a creation myth, it's a larger-than-life retelling. And it's the one everyone will know because it makes for good entertainment. So everything isn't true, that's okay, the core of it is. Mark Zuckerberg probably did step on more toes than he should've when he created Facebook. He's now one of the world's youngest billionaires, and that's an awesome achievement. But then the final frame of the movie leads you to wonder: was it worth it?

It's up to you to decide what lessons this creation myth contains. It is, in true Facebook fashion, generated by the userviewer.

Final word: The Social Network is a brilliantly-crafted film in the vein of a classical tragedy that is less about Facebook's creation and more about how human relationships are broken in the quest for the top of the dogpile.