"The only people on earth who understand the brilliant simplicity of the idea are under 21 years old."
The writer is
Aaron Sorkin; the director is David Fincher; and that should tell you to expect
a very good movie. That is exactly what you will get. The Social Network
is a searing study of the arrogance and success of the company that sprouted and
grew in the mind of a kid in Harvard Square. Is Facebook a contribution to
progress or an unnecessary frivolity? With a company valuation of 25 billion
dollars and a membership of 500 million, it no longer seems frivolous.
As the movie
opens, Mark Zuckerberg is a Harvard sophomore and a computer genius. He is also
a socially maladroit outsider who wants to be in but fails to see that his own
arrogance is his undoing among his peers. In the fall of 2003, it occurs to
Zuckerberg that he could post online pictures of Harvard girls and encourage
beer soaked students to rate their looks. He calls it Face Mash. It catches, it
soars, and it gives outsider Zuckerberg a gift far more important to him than
money: the power of exclusion. Only those with a <harvard.edu> address can
access his site. But then he quickly realizes he can "take the entire social
experience of college and put it on line."
The crucial
piece to that puzzle is to get there first. He accepts as partners his friend
Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) and two members of the varsity crew who were sniffing
around the same concept. Zuckerberg absorbs their ideas and cuts them out. When
the rowers complain of the theft to Larry Summers, the Harvard president tells
them to get lost. The only people on earth who understand the brilliant
simplicity of the idea are under twenty-one years old.
Surely one of
the entertaining aspects of the computer revolution is watching lawyers,
bankers, and professors stare blankly as students make millions. But suddenly
these kids run into the big life decisions of honor, ethics, and morals in the
face of their enormous gains. Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) of Napster is
presented as a weasel; Andrew Garfield is excellent as Zuckerberg's loyal,
abandoned partner, CFO, and man with a conscience; Zuckerberg himself seems to
have no moral compass at all. In a superb performance, Jesse Eisenberg literally
inhabits the arrogant game changer who can't understand why his obsessive
knowledge about everything is so offensive to those who suffer it. His
principled girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) - in a story where all women are
objects - says as she breaks up with him: "I'm exhausted; dating you is like
dating a Stairmaster." Aaron Sorkin's crackling dialogue is a gift to them all.
Director
Fincher devises an inspired structure by alternating scenes of lawsuit
depositions (of those pesky fellows left as Zuckerberg road kill) with
flashbacks of what led to the testimony. This is a remarkable movie that asks
the classically chilling question: when there is enough for everyone, does big
money always lead to betrayal, theft, and self-delusion? Apparently so.
Copyright (c) Illusion