Directed by David Fincher from Aaron Sorkin’s adapted screenplay of Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction book.
Is Jesse Eisenberg a nerd, or an a**hole? That’s the question posed by Roony Mara as Erica Albright about his character, inventor of facebook, Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network.” He was an a**hole pretending to be a nerd in “The Squid and the Whale” (Noah Baumback, 2005), a nerd pretending to be an a**hole in “Zombieland” (Ruben Fleischer, 2009) and a mix of both in “Adventureland” (Greg Mottola, 2009). As someone who can’t be disturbed when “wired in” on computer code-writing marathons, he is definitely a nerd here. But how much of an a**hole he is and how either attribute effects his relationship with women is significantly more complicated.
This question comes at the end of the first scene, which—spoiler alert—is their breakup and Erica’s opportunity to share her opinion on the subject (she thinks he’s an a**hole). Their witty repartee flies back and forth like the ball in a championship ping-pong match. The dialogue is layered with coded meanings, and then the characters address and analyze those meanings. This is a masterfully crafted script by Aaron Sorkin of television’s “The West Wing.” Following this exchange, Zuckerberg enters the night air outside the Boston bar and jogs his way through campus to Kirkland House. The words, “Harvard, 2003” materialize and in less than a second are gone. This is a fast film, tightly knit at an even 2 hours. If the first scene was the warm-up, demanding audiences’ full attention after fifteen minutes of previews, then the second is a controlled come-down. Classical violin wafts from a sidewalk performer complete with stand and music, but is underscored by the dark, sobering tones of composer Trent Reznor. And it is night time, as it is 90% of the time in this film, because night time is the right time, or something.
The film continues in this stylized and highly structured way with only a couple hiccups in form of a forced point or some extended expository dialogue. The narrative structure is technically non-linear as we jump around between two separate lawsuits against Zuckerberg and scenes about the drama behind and creation of facebook. But rather than confound, this device eases the viewing process and provides perfect segues between scenes otherwise separated by space and time. “The Social Network” is much more standard fare than Fincher’s 1999 release “Fight Club”, and is more in line with his 2007 film “Zodiac.” It differs from the latter in its speed and versatility, as well as the plethora of simple pleasures it offers. Both were very well made films—“The Social Network” is outstanding.
But the most impressive aspect of this film is its ability to operate on different layers. It’s all but hackneyed to portray facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder Sean Parker (a hilarious and ironic role for a musical icon to play, though Timberlake is out acted at every turn) as the angel and devil respectively atop Zuckerberg’s shoulders. This is especially true as Saverin served as consultant on the book this film is based on. But at least Fincher doesn’t belabor the point. In fact, he actually attacks it from within. After a day of depositions, a female junior lawyer tells Zuckerberg that in these situations the truth isn’t as important as what can be heavily implied. She is talking about going to trial and how everything would look, but isn’t this film a sort of trial? And she, the jury expert, is at once telling the audience what to think, and how easy it is to get us to oblige. Until this point she had been a passive listener, along for the ride just like the audience and maybe now serves as our stand-in. Add that she is a woman fitting with the central struggle for Zuckerberg, and that’s at least 4 layers. It’s that self-awareness that could make this one film that’s significantly smarter than the book. 5/5 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment