The Social Network

TedFlicks Rating:

$9.50 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE…?

In its opening scene, “The Social Network,” the story of the creation of Facebook, reveals the fine hand of writer Aaron Sorkin, who is barely computer literate.  It’s the staccato, overlapping dialogue from TV’s “The West Wing” that gives it away.  Jesse Eisenberg as future Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg is fighting with his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) in a Cambridge, MA bar.  The obnoxious little weasel is punching well above his weight in this doomed relationship.  Erica quite rightly dumps him then and there.

The silly boy, a Harvard man who cannot possibly crack the ancient university’s social structure (he’s justso infra dig — a geek totally devoid of social skills, let alone charm) and cannot keep a girlfriend because he shields his insecurities with gross arrogance, goes back to his dorm room, gets a tad tipsy, and blogs some extraordinary unflattering nonsense about Erica — which in the State of New York would likely violate the slander laws.  Using his keen ability as a hacker, he then cooks up a disgusting thing call “Facemash,” an online collection of all the photos of female Harvard dorm residents (each house has an online “facebook” of headshots for security reasons) and publishes it on a website with revolting game questions such as “Who is hotter?” and “Who more resembles a farm animal?”  It promptly crashes Harvard’s computer network with all the prurient attention it gets.

This is the genesis of the multibillion Dollar business called “Facebook.” Ben Mezrich wrote the book, “The Accidental Billionaires.”  Columbia Pictures liked the treatment and sent it to Sorkin to write the screenplay well before Mezrich had finished the book. Because all of the principal players in the story are still alive and because there were a couple of lawsuits settled out of court in the course of the story (with non-disclosure agreements), pic adheres as closely as possible to the truth as Sorkin was able to sort it out. Facebook had a look at the shooting script.  According to Sorkin, most of the changes Facebook suggested had to do with geek-speak.  It is worth noting that neither Columbia Pictures nor Sorkin has been sued by Zuckerberg or by Facebook. Zuckerberg, now the world’s youngest billionaire, declined Sorkin’s requests for an interview.

Pic, helmed by David Fincher uses the depositions in the combined lawsuits as a device to flash back to the story.  Zuckerberg is the defendant in two multimillion Dollar civil actions, one brought by his Harvard roommate Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) who was his partner and CFO in the creation of Facebook, and the other brought by twins, Cameron and Troy Winklevoss (both ably played by
Armie Hammer as rod-up-the-behind “gentlemen of Harvard” throwbacks to the 1930s), whose idea was the germ behind Facebook — a germ which Zuckerberg took and ran with — after being recruited by the pair to do the technical work to create their site.

Rocker Justin Timberlake does a convincing star turn as Napster founder Sean Parker who hooks up with Zuckerberg and takes Facebook to the next level.  He’s part genius, part hustler, and all dissolute — partying with drugs and underage girls and getting busted — in short, Timberlake plays a rock star in the Internet world.  His character precipitates Zuckerberg’s bust-up with Saverin, which Zuckerberg & Co. handle in an extraordinarily classless way.  They legally cheat him out of his 35% share in Facebook, diluting it to less than one percent.  Saverin signs the papers without reading them. Shame on him.

Its adherence to the truth makes “The Social Network” an unappealing picture.  It’s not the execution, which excels.  Fincher directs with confidence.  Casting is on the money. Performances, especially Eisenberg’s and Garfield’s, are spot on.  Shooting by Jeff Cronenweth is more than workmanlike, and editing by Angus Wall is more than economical — it has to be to cram this epic into 121 minutes.  Pic’s problem is this:  It has not one sympathetic character, no one for whom auds can root.  Perhaps the closest are the Winklevoss twins, who, as played by Hammer, at least display a sense of decency, but it is tough to warm up to stiff, upper crust, poor little rich kids who are worth about a quarter billion.  In an odd way, the only folks who come across as attractive are the incidental characters, Steve Sires as Bill Gates, David Selby as a lawyer at the deposition, and Rashida Jones as his legal associate.

“The Social Network” is rated PG-13. It’s a good call.  There is some rough language, drug use, and a little sex (the point of creating Facebook, it seems, is for geeky boys to score with hot girls), but one feels the need to take a shower after watching this descent into mean-spiritedness.

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