The Social Network
By Charlotte Dekle
We need another Facebook movie! That’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d say. This movie should’ve won Best Picture at the 2011 Academy Awards which was one of the biggest upsets in Oscar History. In the hands of lesser filmmakers, it probably wouldn’t. Only Aaron Sorkin could make boring litigation seem exciting, only David Fincher could make applying for an internship look fun and only Trent Reznor could make rowing down a calm river seem epic. My obsession with Aaron Sorkin reached its peak when I watched this movie for the first time. I was absolutely dazzled by the dialogue, which is typical Sorkin who also did a movie about Steve Jobs (entitled cleverly, Steve Jobs). Also who knew that Justin Timberlake could act this well? I sure didn’t. This movie should be re-titled millionaires suing millionaires for millions of dollars while talking about shares being diluted to a percentage where they are still making millions.
logline: As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea, and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.
Source: IMDb
My Favorite Characters:
Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin: Where was Garfield’s Oscar nomination for this movie? He is phenomenal as he spends the entirety of the film being a good friend and in return, he gets his account frozen, shares diluted, and his name taken off the masthead. Being Zuckerberg’s best friend and CFO couldn’t have been easy in real life, but it’s especially difficult in this movie.
Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker: this guy’s biggest contribution was probably telling Mark to drop the “the” in “thefacebook” to create Facebook. Timberlake gives a supremely entertaining performance as the womanizing, coked up, paranoid, asthmatic Sean Parker, who invented Napster and was the first President of Facebook. He’s a guy you love to hate and it’s fun seeing the guy from *NSYNC do some serious acting.
Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss: he plays both of the Winklevi. Get you a man who can do both, literally. Hammer’s deep, husky, baritone voice is used perfectly as the twin brothers whose idea (a social networking site called the Harvard Connection) is stolen by Zuckerberg which later becomes *spoiler alert* Facebook.
Something I liked: My favorite scene is when, spoilers here (but c’mon it’s facebook), Saverin realizes his shares had been diluted, there is an amazing tracking shot of Saverin saying ‘Mark’, then Saverin proceeds to break Zuckerberg’s computer, calls Parker a pretentious douchebag, and walks away. Awesome.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language.
Where to Watch: Netflix, and for rent or purchase on all major platforms