The movie concerns the invention of the social networking site, Facebook. It is about Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), his friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), and the various other members who take part in this revolutionary invention. When it was announced two years ago that they were making a Facebook movie, many of us (including myself) scoffed at the notion. How could they make a movie about Facebook? Then when Fincher was signed to direct and Aaron Sorkin, creator and writer of the West Wing, signed to pen the script, many of us breathed a collective sigh.
And they have delivered. I think the film benefits more from Sorkin then from Fincher; his memorable dialogue is what drives every scene, and I would be surprised if this didn't win for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Oscars. Of course, Sorkin's dialogue would be nothing if he didn't have a fine cast to embody those words and make their own. And I am not diminishing Fincher's role in all of this; it was his sure hand that guided them through it all to the very finish.
Besides telling the story of how Saverin, Zuckerberg's only real friend, came to sue him for $600 million, the movie meditates on how Facebook has infiltrated our very lives. What made it appealing and different from MySpace or Friendster? Exclusivity. The site was founded solely for Harvard students, then expanded to Cambridge, Yale, and Stanford, and eventually across two continents and farther. When I first joined Facebook four years back, I had to be invited to join (I was only in High School), and it felt like I was being admitted into an exclusive club (I believe it had only recently be opened up to email invitation). Now to sign up is as simple as couple clicks, but then, it was something special.
The movie also does an excellent job of balancing between the invention and meteoric rise of Facebook, and the two depositions, one for Saverin, the other for three Harvard men who had an idea for a site called The Harvard Connection, which Zuckerberg essentially took and made better. These three men, two of the brothers, have a legitimate case, as does Saverin. In fact, from the very first scene, Zuckerberg isn't entirely likable. And I think that's what is amazing about this movie.
We've had unlikable protagonists before, but I think Zuckerberg's portrayal is so poignant because it proves that success and glamour don't go hand in hand, as people would like to believe. Before he invents Facebook, Zuckerberg is nobody, just a computer hacker and programmer (and an excellent one). But after, he gets groupies, and he suddenly becomes the person everyone wants to be friends with. If they spent time getting to know him, they might not like the person they see. The film opens with Zuckerberg on a date with Erica Albright (Rooney Mara, who will play Lisbeth in Fincher's remake of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and she says, "You are going to be a successful programmer, and you are going to spend your whole thinking girls won't date you because you are a nerd. And I tell you, from the bottom of my heart, that that is not true. It's because you're an asshole."
The movie cites this incident as Zuckerberg's initial creation of Facebook. If you search Erica Albright Real on Google, you'll return articles contemplating whether this character actually exists or not. In fact, Zuckerberg said the movie plays out a lot like fiction, some of it weighed in fact, of course, but certain events dramatized or invented for the filmmakers benefit.
And I say good for them. My favorite biopic (which this essentially is) ever made is Amadeus (1984), but that movie makes a rivalry between Salieri and Mozart that didn't actually exist in real life. But do I care? No, because the movie plays out with terrific drama and is one of the best movies I have ever seen. If you want straight fact, go find a biography (which I'm sure we'll see one soon about the ACTUAL Zuckerberg story).
Fincher and Sorkin and everyone involved have crafted one of the year's best pictures, and one I eagerly await seeing again. It's a film about our times, about lives. It is also the story of how to skillfully screw your friend out of a business. Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the founder of Napster, exclaims to Zuckerberg "This is our time!" Indeed it is.
