‘The Social Network’ Review: This Is Our Time

Poster courtesy of Columbia Pictures

If nothing else, The Social Network is about what it means to be a pioneer. As any good historian will tell you, pioneers – people who do something so new and groundbreaking that it irrevocably changes the world – are always more complicated than we think they are. True invention requires all the qualities we admire and remember about heroes, like courage and intelligence, but to be successful it also takes a brutally thick skin, cunning, sheer luck, and a whole lot of ruthlessness. All of these things we tend to forget about the people we glorify. Social Network‘s keen awareness of this fact makes it both one of the most enjoyable films of the year, and ultimately one of the most unsatisfactory.

The film starts with what turns out to be the terminal conversation between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (played admirably by Jesse Eisenberg of Adventure-and-Zombie-land fame) and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara). The film cuts quickly between Eisenberg and Mara as they trade witty but purposeful banter in the trademark style of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Studio 60). During this conversation, we learn that Zuckerberg is a wise-ass, a Boston University hater, and seriously self-absorbed. His main motivation in life seems to be not to make money or friends, but to do something impressive enough to be accepted into one of Harvard’s exclusive Final (“not Final’s”) Clubs. Erica dumps the prick, and he goes home, seeming remarkably unmoved by their breakup.

Zuckerberg spends a drunken night of revenge creating “Facemash,” a website that asks students to rate Harvard girls against each other. The site spreads so quickly that it crashes Harvard’s web servers. After reading about him in the Harvard Crimson, three seniors (and Phoenix SK Final Club members) ask Zuckerberg to build a sort of social Harvard-only dating site for them. He takes the job, but from the beginning it’s clear that he never plans to build “Harvard Connect.” Instead, he stalls for time and asks his business-minded friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to help him start a competing website called “The Facebook,” based on the realization that what made “Facemash” popular was that you could judge people you knew. His plan: take the college social experience online.

The film zips forward from this point on, flashing smoothly back and forth between Harvard circa 2003 and a classy law office in San Francisco some years later where a deposition between Zuckerberg, the three “Harvard Connect” founders, and Saverin is taking place. Zuckerberg defiantly spits out witty retorts and dodges questions from the opposing attorneys. The “Harvard Connect” founders are mad. Saverin seems distant.

At some point, Justin Timberlake shows up as himself, I mean, Sean Parker, founder of Napster, and quickly gains the confidence of the young genius, much to Saverin’s dismay. Parker tells paranoid stories of betrayal during his days at Napster, suggests that it’s Zuckerberg’s time to shine, and waxes about how cool a billion dollars is.  He takes the Facebook inventor to clubs where everyone knows Parker’s name. The mogul sleeps with lots of girls and is charismatic, charming, fun and infamous – everything Zuckerberg wants to be.

Tellingly though, the most fun parts of the movie don’t involve parties, girls, or betrayal. They involve Zuckerberg inventing Facebook by observing the world around him. Sorkin does a great job at building a complex character out of Zuckerberg, but if anything, he gives him too much genius. In a hilarious scene at the computer lab, one of his friends complains that he has no idea if a hot girl he met at a party has a boyfriend or not. Zuckerberg snaps awake and runs home through the snow, realizing that the one thing that truly drives college life is the chance of getting laid. The “Relationship Status” is born.

By the end of the film, you want to hate Zuckerberg, as Sorkin and Director David Fincher have been willing you to all along. He’s a punk, he’s an asshole, and he’s done a lot of ethically dubious things. But try as you might, you can’t. Behind this supposed villain is a person we can all sympathize with. He’s driven, determined, smart and funny. More than that, even if Facebook did steal some ideas from other places, you can’t deny that Zuckerberg truly did bring to it a real understanding of, er, the social networks around us. Yeah, Zuckerberg probably is a bit of an ass, as all of our best heroes are, but he probably understands the college student better than anyone alive.

The Social Network is well (but not flawlessly) acted, perfectly paced, confidently scripted, and directed with a sure hand. Sorkin and Fincher bring to the film an acute understanding of the significance of the story itself: the founding of Facebook has changed the way 500 million people relate to the world, and it largely does represent the story of our time. What they don’t understand is just how significant Facebook is to us, the generation that first adopted it. The story of our time isn’t being told on movie screens; it’s being told on Facebook. It is hard to de-friend the man who made it all possible.

Bottom Line: A fun but serious ride through the founding of the world’s most-used website, the film is enjoyable and a must-see for college students who grew up with the web, but it loses points for repeatedly dissing BU: B+

About Gabe Stein

Gabe Stein (CAS '11), was the founding CTO and Associate Publisher of the Quad.

View all posts by Gabe Stein →

2 Comments on “‘The Social Network’ Review: This Is Our Time”

  1. Fantastic and spot-on review, Gabe. I’d add that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails did an equally superb job at subtly directing the audience’s emotions with his sometimes-ominous-and-sometimes-techno-ish score.

    “At some point, Justin Timberlake shows up as himself, I mean, Sean Parker…” I agree completely, and for this reason, JT’s character is the easiest to accept in the movie.

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