The Social Network

My review of The Social Network will be pedestrian. I am immune to the film's flaws. I am in awe of Aaron Sorkin's script.

The script is one of the best I've ever seen on screen. His words have a cadence outside my experience. People don't talk like that. I mean, they do. I don't. Not that quickly and with such complex sentence and paragraph structuring. These legitimate brilliant characters might. I'm glad they do. I expected the script to be entertaining. I didn't expect it to be so smart, though. Your attention is rewarded. You're not going to follow all of it, but you will get it.

The Internet coding and legal jargons aren't important. They are to the characters, they don't have to be us laymen. What's better is watching them say these things. Language and intelligence are weapons in a battle of social interaction Mark Zuckerberg is ill-equipped for.

The film is largely about men. To say the film is misogynistic misses something. There's hardly any women in the movie. Two of the only women present (Zuckerberg's ex-girlfriend and legal aide respectively) put him in his place. Yes, some of the other women are portrayed as sexual and/or status objects. I'd argue it's less so than any teen or frat comedy doled out year after year.

Yes, back to the men. To say Zuckerberg is a self-absorbed, egotistical, socially-inept asshole misses the point. He's fascinating. How could someone like THIS become the world's youngest billionaire? Show me. Thank you. That's interesting. Jesse Eisenberg has been pegged as the poor man's Michael Cera. He destroys that comparison. Cera never could have done this. Eisenberg rules the gatling gun dialogue while simultaneously conveying intense layers underneath. There is literally ALWAYS something going on with his Zuckerberg. I loathe and pity the character all at the same time he is loathed and pitied by those caught up in his rise.

The supporting performances are less...flashy (?), but uniformly solid. Andrew Garfield serves as the audience's POV. He's clearly smart, but is always trying to play catch up to these geniuses running circles around him. While he's loyal, his frustration is our frustration. Garfield was twitchy (?) in Boy A and Never Let Me Go, lost and crazy eyed in Red Riding 1974. He's doing something more understated here. Justin Timberlake plays to his strengths. His charismatic Sean Parker carries JT's charisma with him. Only in the third act when he becomes a too obvious villain does the film falter.

It's cliche to say that The Social Network is the film of our time. Up in the Air held that moniker just last year. But the Social Network does capture the new media in a way that no other film has before it. Young people has been shown to be awkward, status-obsessed, and self-absorbed before, but never in this context.

Andrew Gates is now friends with The Social Network.
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