Movie Review: ‘The Social Network’

About the rise of Facebook
Movie Review: ‘The Social Network’
(L-R) Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, and Andrew Garfield in Columbia Pictures' 'The Social Network.' Merrick Morton/ Columbia Pictures
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<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/GArfield_medium.JPG"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/GArfield_medium.JPG" alt="(L-R) Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, and Andrew Garfield in Columbia Pictures' 'The Social Network.' (Merrick Morton/ Columbia Pictures)" title="(L-R) Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, and Andrew Garfield in Columbia Pictures' 'The Social Network.' (Merrick Morton/ Columbia Pictures)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-113381"/></a>
(L-R) Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, and Andrew Garfield in Columbia Pictures' 'The Social Network.' (Merrick Morton/ Columbia Pictures)

You might go to see The Social Network with the idea that you’re getting an insight into what makes the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg tick. Though you'll probably leave feeling sorry for him based on the depiction of a young man who is brilliant and rich, yet morally and socially bankrupt.

In fact, there are so few moments in the movie where it’s possible to relate to Zuckerberg that halfway through you start to feel like you’re watching The Elephant Man. It’s both painful and fascinating—like watching a train wreck, except that almost everyone in this story ends up extremely wealthy.

The screenplay, by Aaron Sorkin, was written at the same time as the book by Ben Mezrich and is full of incredibly tight, fast-moving dialogue. At moments, it is shockingly funny because of both the writing and delivery of the dialogue.

The movie (which is rated PG-13) starts out at breakneck speed (verbally) in the opening scene, and the rest of the movie is a battle to follow what Zuckerberg is doing. After getting dumped by his girlfriend, he spends a drunken night of posting photos of his Harvard campus co-eds, which catches the attention of the Winklevoss twins, Kyle and Cameron, (Armie Hammer) and their friend Divya Narendra (Max Minghella).

The Winklevoss’s and Narendra think Zuckerberg has what it takes to program their concept for a Facebook-like project. They pitch the idea; he agrees to work with them, and less than two months later Facebook is born. But the twist is that Zuckerberg cuts out the twins and their friend in the programming process.