The Social Network Review

“The Social Network” (Directed by David Fincher, 2010)

“The Social Network” exposes us to the world of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) the most renown of the Facebook co-founders’ and youngest self-made Billionaire in the world. Considering Facebook boasts over 500 million users as of July, one would only assume that all of Hollywood and “friends” were abuzz with its release. The film, adapted by Ben Mezrich’s book, The Accidental Billionaires, follows the story of Mark Zuckerbergs calculated quick rise notoriety and fortune.
The film garnering a healthy amount of Oscar buzz brought me into the theatre with high expectations. The movie began with faced paced start with Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) get into a dizzy tangent that ends abruptly when Eisenbergs character offends and belittles Rooneys status. This sets the tone for what to expect from the geeky yet overly narcissistic social network mastermind.

The film begins with the birth of the Facesmash, which stemmed from a late night binge on beer and coding, with help of close friend and co-Facebook founder, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). Facesmash was a website that ranked female members of Harvard based on headshots. Facesmash ultimately crashes Harvard’s network and leads young Zuckerberg straight into the angry wrath of Harvard and their female population. He takes his creation with pride and the witty outbursts during his board hearing allow the audience to connect with his mechanical yet arrogant mind.
The Winklevoss twins played by Armie Hammer and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) stand to be the breakout roles of the cast. All members of the elite Porcellian club, they ask Mark if he would like to work on a website together that allows a user to make a profile and upload photos and information pertaining to them. After what appears to be some hesitation, Mark finally agrees. Mark then begins writing the coding for his first social networking site, Thefacebook. The movie begins to bring us in and out of litigations between Mark and his friend, Eduardo and peers, the Hammer twins and Narendra. The passion and tension breaks out as everyone done wrong by Mark get little to no recognition for their work put into the website. Eisenberg does well at holding back any emotion and plays the evil and smart villain to a T.
The movie took me on a rollercoaster and exposed me the “dirty” rise of Facebook. The discovery portion of the lawsuits allowed me to see just how much Zuckerbergs narcissism overtook his life. It is a story of greed and the mechanics behind Mark Zuckerbergs mind.