The Social Network
Cinema Nova, 29/10/2010
Status: Behind by 5 films
The Social Network has a whole lot going for it: a script by AARON SORKIN (The West Wing), direction by DAVID FINCHER (Zodiac, Fight Club), and starring ANDREW GARFIELD (Boy A) and JT playing a rock-star-like Sean “Napster” Parker. And then there’s the story – the creation and disputed intellectual property of Facebook and the awesome carnage of imploding friendships and exploding rivalries among the very smart and very arrogant.
The characters were certainly intriguing, but they’re also pretty repulsive. Even Eduardo Saverin (GARFIELD), Facebook co-founder with Mark Zuckerberg (JESSE EISENBERG), who is set up to be the most sympathetic character is not really all that, well, sympathetic. Amidst all that arrogance, decadence, sense of entitlement and bad behavior, I found it very hard to care whether things worked out for anyone or not. The performances, though, fooled me into something so close to caring that a casual – or even professional - observer wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.
The film was neither a documentary, nor a dramatized biopic, nor a fictionalization of real-life events nor a complete fabrication. It seemed to be a smoosh-up of all of these things, which, unsettlingly and somewhat unsatisfactorily, made it feel like none of them. For all those terrific ingredients, there was still a little something lacking.
