The Social Network

My First Look @ Social Network was in July. It was by far one of the best trailers I have seen in modern cinema. I had in fact written about it as well. Superb utilization of audio and visual cues to create an impact that leaves you asking, “I WANT to see this one”. When I walked into the theatre late last night, I was only hoping that I would not be let down. Add to that the rave reviews given by people who saw it the previous evening @ a paid preview and the pressure for “The Social Network” to deliver was immense to say the least. Thankfully I was not let down at all.


One would think that everyone knows or has at least heard of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). But not too many would know about the grime behind the entire success story and how things really built up between Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Dustin Moskovitz (Joseph Mazzello) & Chris Hughes (Patrick Mapel) on one side and the team of Cameron Winklevoss (Arnie Hammer), Tyler Winklevoss (Josh Pence) & Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) on the other. And where the hell is Mark in all this? Mark is stuck in the middle and getting chewed for borrowing and idea that was supposedly the Winklevoss’. But who was responsible for actually making it the biggest mega trend in recent times? No points for guessing that.

The Social Network takes a really close look at the build up of the facebook story from the really early days on the Harvard Campus. Starting with the night that Mark manages to really piss off one Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) over dinner and then goes onto blog about her. He then in a fit a rage starts putting together “Face Mash” which gets 20K hits in 2 hours and crashes the Harvard server by 4 am. Following this, he is put on 6 months academic suspension when the Winklevoss’ get in touch with him for a social network called harvardconnection.com (later called ConnectU.com). Mark agrees to work on it but knows that he is onto something really big out here and spends the next 7 weeks building the first version of www.thefacebook.com which he goes onto announce. Obviously the trio of the Winklevoss’ and Divya Narendra are not at all pleased but do not want to behave like gentlemen of Harvard and so don’t take him to court. But once the juggernaut starts rolling, there is no stopping it and we are know that FB now has more than 500 million active users.

The Social Network is in line for a nomination for the best movie @ the Oscars next year. It will not win the Oscar thanks to one Christopher Nolan but will definitely earn itself a nomination. In what is probably the 2nd best movie made this year, David Fincher gives us yet another fabulous 2 hours. Fincher is best known for starting his movie career in 1995 with Seven. 15 years and 5 more huge movies later, he has given us yet another reason to cheer about. Superb direction and awesome editing are the stand out features of the movie. It takes a while to get used to the cuts in between nearly 6 parallel story lines. And be forewarned that it is a severely dialogue intensive movie with loads of internet jargon thrown in. But also watch out for the slick humour thrown in as garnish.

I could not have thought of anyone else to play the part of Mark Zuckerberg than Jesse Eisenberg. Not that he has any movies where his acting talent has been on display but then again, he never had the likes of David Fincher to work with. Jesse does a wonderful job with the portrayal of Mark and so does the rest of the cast. Stand out performances from Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin & surprise surprise Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker (Napster fame). Performances all through are very intense.

Must watch movie folks – 8 on 10 clearly.