The Social Network

David Fincher’s “The Social Network” begins with a searing exchange in which Harvard wonder boy Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) uses algorithmic methods to explain to his “girlfriend” why their relationship is no longer a viable institution.  I put “girlfriend” in quotations, because she appears to exist solely as way for Mark to gain access to a forbidden circle that he would otherwise have no chance at experiencing.  His desire for inclusion, his megalomaniacal drive to be accepted by everyone creates an intellectual island on which he’s forced to dwell and, as screenwriter Aaron Sorkin tells it, Mark wouldn’t have it any other way.  He carries around so much pretentious antagonism that any connection to another human being is negated by his notion of virtual supremacy being just a little bit cooler, thus beginning the horror story of Facebook as we know it. 

Eisenberg gives us a captivating, ice-in-the-veins take on a character who most people know as “the youngest billionaire in the world” but, if we’re to believe Sorkin, money was the furthest thing from Zuckerberg’s mind.  Sure, greed played a role, but not in the Gordon Gekko sense we’re accustomed to.  What Zuckerberg was really after was a way to circumvent the exclusion-based tradition of high society by bringing the party scene to the masses and his casual dismissal of anyone willing to help is what I found to be the most engaging dichotomy at work here.  Rather than assimilate the old-fashioned way, he decided to blow the whole thing open as a way of getting back at the clubs he once deemed important and, as a result, the so-called cyber villain of our times was born.   

Did he steal the idea from his Harvard classmates?  Did he use, chew up and spit out the only person left in the world whom he could call a friend?  Is he really as insufferable a person as the film makes him out to be? 

Perhaps, but counting on Sorkin’s script to be 100% accurate is missing the point.  He taps into the zeitgeist of Generation Y like no other American film I’ve seen this year and does so with a sparkling immediacy worthy of so much more than just Academy Award attention.  Facebook currently sits at 500 Million members and counting and the line between living and living vicariously through a computerized network becomes fuzzier with each passing second.   

Fincher’s direction and tone are sublime, Trent Reznor’s wicked musical arrangements couldn’t be better and Spider-Man-to-be Andrew Garfield gives what I think is the most painfully brilliant performance of the entire film as Mark’s one-time friend and CFO Eduardo Saverin.

The sweet irony of all this is that, despite all the money and fame, Zuckerberg ends up alienating himself from exactly the kind of social mingling he always wanted.  Instead, what we see is a man and his computer, side by side, for better or for worse until the bitter conclusion.  I almost felt sorry for him at the end but, then again, it wasn't my 34% ownership that he was accused of liquidating.

-  **** out of 4