The Social Network

I want to apologize right at the beginning of this post (just in case somebody out there is reading this someday).  I completely missed the deadline for this blog last week on Thursday.  I would've had something, but I really thought I'd already taken care of it.  Regardless, here's the review. 

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake

Directed by: David Fincher

Rating: Liked It

"The Social Network" is about the rise of facebook.  It's the story of how it all started on Harvard's campus several years ago.  We see a lot (though I'm sure not all) of the little secrets and details about how founder Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea, designed the site, and put it into practice.  We see him gain so much, while losing in the process, too. 

Even though I knew what this movie was about, I had no idea what to expect.  The story is told through flashbacks as Zuckerberg sits in two different deposition hearings for two different lawsuits.  He is being sued by his former best friend whom he kicked out of the company, and, separately three former Harvard classmates that say he stole the idea from them.  The flashbacks tell us the story from there. 

It was really interesting to see (and remember) facebook's early beginnings from being a site for only Harvard students and expanding from there to other schools.  When I initially signed up for the site it was still called College Facebook, and you had to have a .edu email account to sign up.  Now, anyone can join and they have millions of users in hundreds of different countries. 

Even after seeing the movie, it's hard to tell whether to side with or against Zuckerberg.  Eisenberg does a great job of portraying a character you just can't read very well.  It's hard to feel for somebody that has so much going for them but seems intent on just being a stupid kid.  He's obviously of extreme intelligence, but it's also painfully obvious that he's very young.  Bad decisions about in the facebook world. 

Timberlake (as Napster founder Sean Parker) is dead on as a similar young genius to Zuckerberg; however, through Parker we see an even darker side to the life of the super intelligent.  Garfield also does an awesome job as Eduado Saverin, Zuckerberg's best friend. 

The story isn't directly linear, and I feel like if it had been, I would've been bored.  I really like the way they put it together.  There are moments when Eisenberg presents his lines so directly and well that I would swear he is of the same IQ level as the man he portrays.  I really enjoyed the movie overall, and I would really recommend it.  I laughed quite a bit, but was thoroughly drawn in to the drama of facebook.