The Social Network

Last night I got to see a preview of the movie The Social Network. Prior to going, every time I mentioned the film to anyone, it wasn’t met with much enthusiasm. Unperturbed, I was still looking forward to watching it.

For those who don’t know, The Social Network is a film about the founder/founding of Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg (the creator) and Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin (Zukerberg’s best friend at college). The most notable cast member however is Justin Timberlake – for obvious reasons. Timberlake isn’t actually central to the film although adverts would have to believe he plays a bigger role than he actually does.

Snooze fest I hear you cry! Why would you want to sit through two hours of this? Well, simple; to have a little light shed on how the site that once had many of us hooked came into being. Yes people are still joining the site daily but I’d say that the novelty of Facebook has and is wearing off. At least for myself and people that I know.

The Social Network is quite a dark movie and by dark I mean the colour palette as opposed to it being macabre. Very few scenes are shot in bright light and even those that are, are made darker by the wardrobe of the cast members. I highlight this as a positive not a negative because shot any other way would not be in keeping with the story line.

The film was shot with no input from Mark Zuckerberg or the Facebook staff or employees but the screenplay was adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 notification book The Accidental Billionaries. Eduardo Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich’s story which is what leads me to believe that it is probably an accurate re-telling sexed up slightly to pull in ratings.

The cast is brilliantly convincing so I tip my hat to the casting director. For a musician (usually they excel in one craft and not the other), Justin Timberlake did a great job. However, given that I am a Timberlake admirer of yesteryear, I was more than slightly distracted in many of his scenes by how much he’s aged! He certainly looked all of his 29 years, if not more but it worked and was probably intentional for the appearance of the character he was playing; Chris Parker – better known as the founder of Napster.

I disagree with James King of Radio 1 when he described The Social Network as “One of the best films of the year…” Yes the tale is told quite masterfully, it is at times emotionally wrenching, well constructed, and witty and every so often requires you to use your brain in order to keep up with the technical jargon. But it is far from an iconic film.

It is a must see from the point of view that I think people should have a deeper understand of the origins of a social networking site that many of us use on a daily or weekly basis. Also, ultimately it is a morality tale – one that reiterated certain belief’s I have regarding friendships and left me seriously disliking Mark Zuckerberg and feeling like he’s a complete and utter douche bag pain!

Having said that, I don’t know him personally and his temperament may have been exaggerated for the big screen so it’s unfair of me to completely character assassinate him after seeing one film. But, it is what it is and that’s the lasting impression that I got. Eduardo Saverin on the other hand is a likable character and I feel the movie is quite sympathetic to him but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that he had some sort of input in Mezrich’s book.

Yes I enjoyed The Social Network and recommend you watch it too but it’s not imperative that you do so immediately. You could wait until it comes out on DVD or does the rounds on Sky movies and not particularly feel out of the loop. For those of you who do see it any time soon and those who are on the fence about going;

Would you want to see it? / What did you think of it?