The Social Network Blu-ray Review
David Fincher's latest is his greatest.
Reviewed by Martin Liebman, January 6, 2011
The ability to make money doesn't impress anybody around here.
Some directors just "have it." They posses the ability to not only craft one masterwork time and again -- think Sam Mendes, Stanley Kubrick -- but to
take any subject material, be it something undeniably profound or superficially trivial, and turn it into a spellbinding tour-de-force of cinema that
appeals to every viewer and engages each sense with a unique combination of thematic import, emotional clout, and visual allure. With
The Social
Network, David Fincher --
already working around the periphery of this exclusive club -- joins this "Goldfinger" fraternity of directors who turn everything they touch into
Cinematic treasure, and his "Facebook movie" is arguably the
pièce de résistance amongst such films. Bold, imaginative, timely,
timeless, and layered with fascinating subtexts that speak on modern society through the prism of the way man lives and interacts in the 21st
century,
The
Social Network is nothing less than an illustrious instant classic that achieves a level of meaning and significance rarely attained by a work of art.
Fincher's picture seems superficially trivial and centered on a subject that doesn't appear to lend itself to be more than a quickly forgotten movie of the
week, but like the great storytellers of cinema are apt to do, Fincher turns the story of a genius programmer, his website, and his personal and legal
trials into a modern day allegory, a reflection of society that's as darkly disturbing as the film is beautifully alluring.
 
The face of Facebook.
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It's the 2003 Fall semester at Harvard, and Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg,
Adventureland) is about to embark on a journey that will make him
the youngest billionaire in the world. It all starts with a relationship gone south; a recent break-up prompts Mark to blog about his former girlfriend,
which in turns spurs him to create a campus-wide social site that allows users to rate the looks of many of the girls on campus. His site gains notice
around school, and the university's network is quickly overloaded. Mark is placed on a sixth-month academic probation for his part in crashing
Harvard's "sophisticated" network, but schoolwork is furthest from
his mind. Word of his coding genius quickly spreads, and he's approached by two high-GPA members of the Harvard crew team, twins Cameron and
Tyler
Winklevoss (Armie Hammer, Josh Pence), to help them create a campus-wide social networking site they've dubbed "Harvard Connection."
However,
Mark quickly realizes the potential and expands on the idea, and in conjunction with his work on previous web ventures, he puts aside his work on
Harvard Connection and concentrates
his efforts on a social networking site he calls "The Facebook," a site which catches the attention of the student body. Mark, spurred on by ambition
and his fledgeling personal life, enlists friend and fellow student Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to back the site, serve as its CFO, and help him
expand it into other universities' networks. When The Facebook reaches Stanford University on the West Coast, it earns the attention of Napster
founder
Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake,
The Open Road) who takes Mark under his wing in hopes of riding his
coattails to financial and personal success. Told in flashback form,
The Social Network also recounts Mark's legal battles as he wards off
lawsuits from former colleagues who feel spurned by the dot-com billionaire and who want their piece of the multi-billion-dollar Facebook pie.
What is
The Social Network? In a broad, colloquial sense, it's a website that connects people through personal information, photographs,
and
other user-generated entries that allow users to share their lives with their friends, family, and the world at large. In a smaller context, it's a
double entendre film title that defines not only the broader subject material of a computer genius' rise to power and the website he's
created, but a metaphor for the personal life that's a direct result of the website he creates and the people with whom he must both necessarily and
litigiously co-exist to build his
empire of
societal dominance that's come to be
the defining social structure and the most important digital creation since the advent of the Internet
itself. Director David Fincher's film is a masterwork not because of the subject material it covers -- frankly, it is by itself nothing spectacular from an
emotional perspective, nor is it necessarily entertaining at a base level considering the generally-accepted definition of that word -- but rather
because of the
way Fincher uses the story as a microcosm of sorts to highlight the wanton need for social status, power, and wealth in contemporary society, not to
mention the litigiousness through which everyone seems to want to ride the coattails of others to easy financial stability. The Internet is the new
social hierarchy, the legal
system is the new business partnership, and
The Social Network is the next great movie, a modern day
Wall Street of sorts where greed is the new norm and power is wielded
through the click of a mouse, the stroke of a keyboard, and lives and livelihoods are made and squandered with the updating of a status page.
Fincher's picture is brilliant in the way it so effortlessly and transparently showcases a brave new world made of, by, and for the young who have
crafted their own digital social order and established their dominance not through the sword or even the pen, for the computer is now mightier than
both.
The question that remains, then, is whether or not
The Social Network is a product of manufactured import, built around David Fincher's
uncompromising and unmatched style that's on display with every metaphorically-speaking digitally-flicking frame of the movie. Does his
unflappable
direction and incredible eye for detail and crafty manipulation of the story make it seem bigger, better, and more relevant than it actually is? The
answer is, partially, yes.
The Social Network very likely wouldn't be much without a director who knows how to squeeze the most from his
subject, but that's true of almost any great film. Few stand on their own merits without the insight and know-how of the storyteller, meaning only
a precious
few movies are capable of surviving and thriving with a hack at the helm. That's fine, though. An artist's job is to move and manipulate his
audience to the beat of his or her work, to craft a finished product that speaks to its audience, whether that product be a still photograph, a picture
comprised of brushstrokes and pigments, music created from the strumming of a guitar or a complete orchestra, or a motion picture. In
The
Social Network, David Fincher finds the greater purpose behind the X's and O's of the story. On paper, it's a story worth telling to be sure, but
Fincher finds what it is that allows it to resonante, to become something greater than even the supposed whole, to flesh it out into something that
represents a generation -- a way of life, even -- rather than a mere story with a traditional narrative structure. Fincher's film is disturbingly dark
both physically and metaphorically. It's not about a person, per se, but a journey into a great unknown, a brave new world, as it were, a new way of
existence that at once allows people to both personalize and depersonalize, compartmentalize and attain wholeness within every aspect of one's
life, all of it condensed into a picture and a few relevant and irrelevant statistics.
Not only has Fincher capitalized on the story and given it a uniquely dark façade, he's also collaborated with actors and musicians that put the
finishing touches on what is unquestionably one of the great films of this generation. Indeed,
The Social Network's unheralded star may
very well be its music. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have crafted an unmistakably dark score that reflects the picture's deeper themes, as well as
Director David Fincher's visual style, perfectly. It's haunting yet alluring, a score that's superficially minimalist but thematically large, the perfect
companion to the movie. Fincher's cast is exemplary, too. Jesse Eisenberg -- who before
The Social Network was best known as the smart
and ultra-cautious but somewhat goofy sidekick in
Zombieland -- delivers a performance that transcends his typecast and
allows him to demonstrate a range that's, yes, much like the movie's look, themes, and sound, dark and alluring but accesible even under the
techno-jargon and power plays that help him develop the site as well as hold his own during the personal, political, legal, and social challenges that
follow. He plays the part sharply and manages to give Zuckerberg a personality that's at once both personal and distant. Eisenberg plays the part in
such a way that Zuckerberg seems concerned with proving his worth, showing he can create and nurture something and not just profit from
it, in a way the opposite of those with whom he must deal on a personal, professional, and legal perspective throughout the film. The dichotomy
between Zuckerberg and the other characters is startling; he's in it for himself, and the others -- his supposed friends, longtime
enemies, anyone who wants their piece of the pie, justified or not -- are in it for the money. Eisenberg's Zuckerberg seems more intent on
outmaneuvering
than out-earning his enemies, which gives the movie it's dark dynamic. There are no good guys or bad guys, no winners or losers, just competitors
who see in the same thing profit, but profits of different types, profits of the bank account and profits of the mind and soul. The remainder of the
cast is sharp, but this is Eisenberg's movie, at least so fas as David Fincher allows him to have it, supported by Aaron Sorkin's Oscar-worthy
screenplay that offers some of the zippiest and natural (and naturally-delivered) dialogue around.