Delayed Reaction: The Social Network

Premise: A look about what in the founding of Facebook led to multiple lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg.

I said it in 2010 and I'll say it again now. That was way too soon for a movie about the founding of Facebook. That site was barely 6-year-old at the time this movie was made. The lawsuits in the film hadn't even been fully settled yet*. The site has gone through countless facelifts since then and only grown as a societal force. 2010 was far too early to know the fallout of that story.

*I'm not fact checking that, but I remember that was true.

But, The Social Network was never really about the founding of Facebook, was it? I'll admit, when I first saw it in 2010 or 2011, I failed to appreciate that nuance. I was too fixated on the fact that the story was too recent to get a full perspective. This is a movie about ambition and loneliness. Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg is an invention. It doesn't really resemble the real Mark, whoever that is. And it's not meant to. I know this was based on a book, but it wouldn't surprise me if you told me that Aaron Sorkin or David Fincher already had the idea for this kind of story before someone made the Facebook connection.

In hindsight, this movie was almost prophetic in the way that it tears down the troubled genius myth. Shows like House and The Mentalist were still on the air glorifying brilliant assholes. Breaking Bad was still revealing the end lesson about the folly of Walter White. The 2010s are when media really started to turn on these characters. The Social Network jumpstarted this trend by never attempting to redeem the character Mark. The movie literally opens with Rooney Mara delivery the movie's mission statement when she lays into Mark.

It's remarkable how much the performance has come to define Jesse Eisenberg's career in the years that followed. He's pretty much always playing into that persona (see: Lex Luthor) or consciously against it (remember 30 Minutes or Less and American Ultra?). I forgot just how stacked this cast is. It was most people's introduction to Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Rooney Mara. It gave us a glimmer of hope that Justin Timberlake could be a serious leading man. It turned out to be Brenda Song's only role in a major movie to date. Dakota Johnson even sneaks in there. Rashida Jones. Max Minghella too. It seems like every producer came away from this movie with a starring project for a different cast member.

Also, the Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross score is tremendous. I don't have the musical vocabulary to say how it works exactly. I just know that it set the perfect tone throughout. It is the secret star of most scenes.

I'm glad that I finally have enough distance to appreciate this movie. The only problem is that I my first instinct is to check how much of the story is accurate, and that's not the point of it.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend