My top 30 films - No.18

18. The Social Network (2010) - "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies."

"Bosnia. They don't have roads, but they have Facebook."

You should know what this film is about. If not, where have you been?

The film starts back in fall 2003 when Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland and Zombieland)) is dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)). Many would call what he does next spiteful, calling her a bitch and revealing a few home truths about her on the Internet. This then leads him to create "FaceMash.com", a website that allows the user to rate the attractiveness of female students. This involves hacking into the protected areas of the Harvard computer network and copying the private ID images of each house. After he receives a 6 month academic probation, he is approached by the Winkelvoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) who want him to create a website called Harvard Connection, a social networking website only for Harvard students. Even though he agrees to their proposal, Mark has an idea for his own website, that he thinks doesn't use a line of code provided by the three of them. This includes programming and funding from his roommates Dustin Muskovitz (Joseph Mazzello (Jurassic Park and The Pacific)) and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield (Doctor Who and The Amazing Spider-Man)). This leads to them creating "Thefacebook" from their room and send it to all Harvard students. After this success, they start to branch out to other American universities. This soon attracts the interest of Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the founder of Napster. He wants a share in the company and suggests they move to California, just as long as they drop the "the", just call it "Facebook", because it's "cleaner". The film concentrates mainly on the two lawsuits taken out against Mark Zuckerberg; the first by Narendra and the Winkelvoss twins, or as Mark calls them the "Winkelvii"; the second from Eduardo after his shares become virtually worthless.

Before I saw this film, even when I first joined Facebook, I was unaware of its past and the two lawsuits. However, it was interesting that they were the main focus point of the film and how many different versions of the truth there actually were. Full credit there goes to director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Fincher has once again made an interesting and involving film; past examples include Se7en, Zodiac and Fight Club and the scenes of Eduardo at the Phoenix S-K final club are reminiscent of Fight Club to some extent. Sorkin is most famous of course for writing the US hit series The West Wing. It must have been interesting for him to decide which version to display, because there are three different versions of the truth. Sorkin therefore decides not to take a position on the truth, but instead shows everyone's interpretation. Apparently Sorkin original script was considered too long for the film, so Fincher wanted everyone to talk fast, because he didn't want to cut any of it. An obvious example of this is the opening scene. I will leave it to you to decide whether it is more a David Fincher film than an Aaron Sorkin one and vice versa.

Sorkin does add comedic touches to the film, which are shown brilliantly especially through Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. He has many memorable one liners. I particularly remember the scene at his hearing after hacking into the Harvard computer network:

Mark Zuckerberg: As for any charges stemming from the breach of security, I believe I deserve some recognition from this board.
Ad Board Chairwoman: I'm sorry?
Mark Zuckerberg: Yes?
Ad Board Chairwoman: I don't understand.
Mark Zuckerberg: Which part?

At the beginning of the film, the audience must share the opinion that he is an arsehole, especially how he reacts after the break-up with his girlfriend. It is horrible, infantile and crass, but at the end of the film you do have some sympathy for him. Eisenberg deserved that Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. It's just unlucky that he lost out to Colin Firth for The King's Speech. Andrew Garfield's performance is somewhat underrated in my opinion, but he does stand out, especially for the fact his character is perhaps Mark Zuckerberg's only actual friend and he is left in the dark. Plus Garfield won the 2011 Kermode Award for Best Supporting Actor. Justin Timberlake's performance looks as though it comes naturally to him. He was a self-confident and arrogant individual years ago and does well basically playing himself.

This film shows how the greatest social networking device since the telephone was invented the world's most anti-social person. There has been no other device like it. There has not been any other film like this, in which there are so many contrasting versions of the truth. If only they made an up-to-date version of how they keep messing up the design.