Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer Director: David Fincher Category: IIB
The Social Network begins with obnoxious Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) - still a year or two from hitting Facebook gold - exchanging acerbic verbal volleys with his (fictional) girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). Zuckerberg is obsessed with getting into prestigious university clubs so he can take her to meet 'a lot of people you wouldn't normally get to meet'. Frustrated, Albright says being with him is 'like dating a stairmaster'.
This cinematic tour de force is crucial in understanding The Social Network. Of course, this bitter meeting, which ends with Albright dumping Zuckerberg, is shaped as the point which drives him to invent Facebook.
One word from their conversation is key. The film is about 'codes': it's in the pair's veiled admonishments (they talk about 'speaking in code'); it's the information Zuckerberg needs for his enterprises; it's Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss (Armie Hammer), the twins whose online-network idea was stolen by Zuckerberg, refraining from bringing lawsuits because they are 'gentlemen of Harvard'; it's the greed-is-great ethos Napster guru Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, above right with Eisenberg) imbues into Zuckerberg to get him to cut his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) out of the business; and it's the lawyers who argue and condescend as they battle for the windfall brought about by Facebook's success.
In fact, The Social Network is itself a code: adapting and dramatising The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich's book about Zuckerberg's website, Fincher has made a film which goes beyond Facebook's emergence as the noughties' cultural zeitgeist.
The film contains the odd scene that explains why Facebook looks how it does today, such as the (probably fictional) incident which inspired the site's 'relationship status' category. The Social Network is a candid tale of how Facebook drives people apart. It unfolds in confined spaces (damp dorm rooms, inhuman conference rooms, dark drinking holes) and the ceaseless action in the film points at gloom rather than glee. Never is the viewer given images of people connecting because of Facebook.