The Social Network (2010) ****/5.

Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker and Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg


( I did this review in 2010. I am posting it here to commemorate Facebook's first IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. This film remains relevant because it explains the origins of this global soft ware empire)


The Social Network (2010) is a good film. The taglines for the film which interested me were 'Punk, Genius, Billionaire'. I was expecting the film to explain all three particularly why he is a genius. It's because he is supposed to be a genius why the facebook server can maintain so much traffic on the web (500 million). The film does explain to an extent why he is a genius although years will have to pass before we can see the true significance of his breakthrough i.e. how it can be applied to other fields of computer science and how this will encourage the development of new programming techniques. It is clear however that this is one of the year's best films: good writing, editing, musical score and, most importantly, good acting and direction are all there. The film centres on the development of the popular social networking site facebook. Whereas the film speaks of how it grew into existence it is more concerned with the developments at the top i.e. with those who founded it and issues relating to copyright or whose idea it really is.  There are two civil lawsuit cases in the film. One is very insignificant (he is being sued by he Winkle voss twins. This is a good performance from Armie Hammer Jr.) Although it does explain certain issues whereas the other civil suit provides the catalyst for the film's dramatic moments (Zuckerberg is being sued by his best friend and business partner Eduardo Severin(Andrew Garfield) ). It is from the court cases that we get glimpses, through flashbacks, of the process of facebook's development. The majority of the story is not told from Zuckerberg's (Jesse Eisenberg) perspective but by those who either testified against him or are suing. As the civil suits are against Zuckerberg he does not say much and instead demonstrates his unwillingness to answer questions. He tries to be clever by trying to evade the questions thrown at him. This is a source of clever jabs etc but that does not distinguish him as a genius. Some of the dialogue is typical sarcasm and intellectual snobbery nothing elevating.

The film begins with Zuckerberg as the typical undergraduate punk at Harvard who wants to do well. He is also an intellectual snob and this affects how he interacts with people in the film. Doing well at Harvard means being accepted to one of the elite clubs. Zuckerberg has his eye on the phoenix club. It is, as is always the case, elitist and quite exclusive. In order to be initiated one has to go through several grueling rituals as Eduardo discovers when he is given the call. It is worth a digression here to say that Eduardo's acceptance seems to become a source of ire between him and Zuckerberg. In order to get accepted you have to gain the attention of the club. Zuckerberg gets the motivation after he breaks with his girl in the opening scene and trashes her on the internet and creates a site (no spoilers here only to say that the site revolves around the women on the campus) on the internet through the Harvard network that gets people's attention. The film does explain why Zuckerberg feels he has to get accepted to these clubs. Not only because they are exclusive but because the people in those clubs normally end up in the top positions in American society. As the club is presented in the film it is not clear why he would want to get accepted as it is the typical bourgeois set up which is prone to libertine excesses that border on sodomy. It's no wonder corruption is acceptable or seen as the norm in the great United States of America. Zuckerberg's fanaticism about getting into the club eventually leads him to get involved with the WInklevoss twins who approach him with the idea of developing a site for social networking. Zuckerberg takes up the idea as his own, along with Severin, (the facebook) and this becomes the source of the lawsuit filed by the Winklevoss twins. This case is significant in the film for it highlights Zuckerberg's genius as a programmer.

Genius is hard to grasp nowadays it seems. Whereas the Winklevoss twins may have come up with a basic idea of what the site was to be about they never developed the actual program that Zuckerberg used to get facebook started. The Winklevoss twins are intellectual hacks with no real sense of originality. Their behavior is characteristic of the typical sycophantic bourgeois who give the proletariat the impression that they are smart and worthy to be their rulers when in fact their thoughts are based on existing facts. If they have any original thoughts it is baseless. Harvard however has a high intellectual standard and they must have been able to engross the existing facts pretty well like the rest who are there, not because of their connections, but their intellectual abilities. They would perhaps stand out in spheres with a low intellectual standard where the man who can master the existing knowledge is the genius and is praised highly for his intellect. This man however will never make any real breakthroughs of his own.   The development of a site like facebook with its unique program could not have developed from such sycophantic personalities as the film highlights to its credit. The basic genius of facebook is its ability to manage such a large flow of traffic on the internet and this distinguishes it from other social networking sites such as MySpace.  It seems the Winklevoss twins were determined to follow the similar lines of those sites. The only difference was that they wanted it restricted to Harvard only. Only those with the Harvard server address could enlist.  Also the breakthrough by Zuckerberg makes one understand why he would not need to finish Harvard in the first place. A cameo by Bill Gates probably illustrates the point well. With Zuckerberg's breakthrough, which opened many doors and created a new soft ware empire, he would not need a degree from Harvard to validate how smart he is. There are the average people who use the degree as a crutch to advance in society for they will never possess that idea that will have them soar over the heads of the PHDs etc; or the idea that will fuel an entrepreneurial venture that inevitably leads to a fortune. In this case it's the multibillion dollar empire of facebook.

Zuckerberg best friend Eduardo is portrayed as the unceasing social climber who is prepared to be the typical sycophant who rises by kissing asses and would perhaps prefer to contribute to the value of another man company rather than having the insight and determination to form his own path. This is where the billionaire factor of facebook comes from and why Sean parker (Timberlake), founder of the now defunct napster, comes in. He is the idealist who contrasts with Severin's realism and kiss ass philosophy. His idealism, although reckless at times, does contribute to Facebook's growth into a multibillion dollar empire. This is a good performance by Timberlake as he is able to reveal all the nuances of the character as delineated by the screen writers. His paranoia is the negative feature of his character. If Severin had not pointed it out in his testimony on the character it would be hard for viewers to see beyond the veneer of his suave calculating persona. His paranoia obviously becomes more evident by the end but it cannot be denied that when you first see him he is probably the coolest person on earth.  You then get to understand how he is able to weave his web around Zuckerberg.  People might be glad to see Parker in his less than stellar moments but it is clear that his idealism catapulted facebook into the great tomorrow which is now: 500million users. He is the one who takes Zuckerberg to meet new investors so that he can expand his business. He and Zuckerberg do share a common belief, which contrasts with the short sighted Severin, that in its initial stages facebook is just a fad and that you should not be in too much of a hurry to be demanding money from the consumers. Eduardo, who tries to contend with Parker, naively tries to freeze his initial investment of $18000 (which kept the company going initially) to try and teach Zuckerberg a lesson. In fact when Eduardo is forced out of the company because of his kiss ass philosophy, which allows him to be taken advantage of, it is then we see him seizing the moment and suing Zuckerberg for 600 million. It is even probable that Severin by freezing the account in which the initial capital of the company lay could actually be seen as the motivating factor for Zuckerberg and parker to alienate him. The film illustrates his kiss ass philosophy well in a scene that involves his Asian girlfriend (Brenda Song). It is clear that she is determined to control him and it's only after she burns a gift that he gives her because his relationship status is single that he has the courage to be assertive with her. If it was a different man who was more in control she could not speak down to him as she does. The filmmakers used that scene well without it seeming superfluous. It is an important scene that highlights the weakness of Severin's character. It is only after that scene that he starts to take charge. By showing his weaknesses the screenwriters were able to effectively demonstrate that with him facebook would not have gone very far.  The film, therefore, cannot be called bias. Yes it was unfair of Zuckerberg and Sean, who was president at the time, to do what they did but the film does demonstrate why they did it. Don't be too quick to cast judgment.

All in all everything is on point in this film. This is one of the year's best films. It should do well at the Oscars. The reason why it is good is because it's not biased for as was said before the civil lawsuits are where the film is centred; the rest is just primarily flashbacks. As a judge in a civil suit you have to be objective and listen to both sides and determine who was right or wrong. Yes you should not be surprised by the outcome as it's supposed to be based on fact but the screenwriters gave you the opportunity to judge on your own because the motivation of each character is clear and is conveyed well by each actor. There is no clear cut means of determining who was right or wrong. Where the characters erred was in their inherent personality. Sean Parker is paranoid, Zuckerberg is an intellectual snob and Severin is a sycophant. That is the source of the drama in the film: how these personalities collide not only with each other but with others. It is the credit to the filmmakers that they were able to convey this without being biased in favour of any individual. It still remains to be seen the extent of his genius i.e. how far the programme used to create facebook can be applied to other spheres of life. The filmmakers have, however, given you the basic reasons for his individual achievements which  should be enough as only time can tell what are Facebook's limits however its still 500 million and going.

Again this is one the year's best films.