The Social Network

Release Date: October 1, 2010

Directed By: David Fincher

Adapted from the novel “The Social Network” by Ben Mezrich

Synopsis: “The Social Network” chronicles the rise and financial falters of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and CEO, and Eduardo Saverin. In a drunken rage, Harvard student Zuckerberg angrily blogs about his recent ex-girlfriend and decides to start a website called “FaceSmash,” which compares two girls from their school to see who’s hotter. The site gets an unprecedented amount of attention from Harvard students, even making the front page of the school newspaper. Three students in particular admire Zuckerberg’s bold website, and contract him out to make an exclusively Harvard website enabling students to communicate with each other. Zuckerberg realizes he can make a better site, evolving slightly from the same idea as his counterparts, and enlists Saverin to help him finance and create “The Facebook.” The two live the high life, but all good things must come to an end.

Review: I honestly wasn’t this movie’s biggest fan. The appeal for me was that I, much like most of you reading this, use Facebook everyday. This didn’t happen that long ago, so it’s refreshing to see a movie that directly involves a fad that we used from the very beginning. I thought the acting was superb. Jesse Eisenburg plays our title character, and he does a great job of acting like a douche who thinks he’s smarter than everyone. Some of the things he did made me cringe and want to punch him in the face, but I guess that’s how you know his acting was good. Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin was a great role for him. He had a small role in “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (UGH), but he’s really starting to catch the eye of Hollywood producers (Hello, Spiderman!!!). He really captured the naivety and pure innocence of Saverin, who was blind-sided by not only this sudden fame, but also sudden deceit. Plus he’s pretty hot, so that’s always a good thing. Speaking of hot: Justin Timberlake. I love him when he appears on Saturday Night Live, but I was apprehensive about seeing him in a dramatic role (since previous movies he’s been in have gone relatively unseen). I have to say I was positively shocked. He’s a pretty damn good actor, and provided some much-needed comic relief to the film as Napster founder, Sean Parker. He’s just as douchey and self-involved as Zuckerberg, but again he plays it off well. There’s a lot of Oscar buzz surrounding these three characters. I think that Garfield will get nominated, but definitely not win. But besides the acting I was not particularly entertained. It was slow moving and quite frankly anti-climactic. When the end finally came, I felt robbed of much needed closure.

            All in all, I’m glad I saw it. But I don’t have any desire to see it again.