THE SOCIAL NETWORK 2/4
Sony Pictures, Rated PG-13
The Social Network is just about the opposite of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, though money rarely takes a nap in it, either. While Oliver Stone denounces avarice and financial gluttony in his movie, The Social Network tends to revel and wallow in it. Though it may seem in excess to create a lavish production about a website, Facebook may have the distinction of being the only “book” today’s YouTube generation cares to read.
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The self-consciously insular The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg. Reputed to be the youngest billionaire in history, the hotshot Harvard undergrad nerd grabbed that claim to fame as a result of inaugurating Facebook in cyberspace, then auctioning off parts of it to the highest conglomerate bidders.
Director David Fincher already seems to have a handle on scrutinizing budding sociopaths with Fight Club, Se7en, and Zodiac. Fincher’s Zuckerburg, as mapped out in a series of legal depositions inserted into the film, has a flair for ripping off both ideas and profits from his collaborators in this venture. Cavalier when not in-your-face cocky, the gabby snob navigates a Hollywood notion of Harvard. If nothing else, he appears to be dubiously majoring in extra-curricular activities, while butting heads with gullible bluebloods.
Based on the Ben Mezrich bestseller The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network finds Zuckerberg moving on from hacking college administrative websites to designing a publicly posted private relationship network that eventually takes the planet by storm. He’s soon joined by infamous Napster hustler Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) while alienating partners and amassing a fortune from financiers. The chatty film, for all its noisy bravado, is uncharacteristically silent about what exactly lured investors in and kept them there.
Jesse Eisenberg stars in The Social Network
And while the film is always about brains rather than brawn, The Social Network is strictly guy territory, with mental bawling providing the main action in a peculiar Harvard setting essentially sexed up and dumbed down. On top of that, the main character spouts such an over-intellectualized rowdy rap (sans music) and psychs himself into such a hyper-capitalist high, that any logic to this unfocused infomercial disguised as a biopic falls by the wayside.
