The Social Network - Movie Review

****

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Rashida Jones, John Getz and Rooney Mara.
Directed by David Fincher.

Coming out this movie, I had certain feelings toward the players involved. As such, I decided to do a quick check on just how accurate it was, and it does look like it took a lot of liberties. Not as egregious as, say, A Beautiful Mind ignoring that John Nash and his wife got divorced, but enough liberties where I had to remind myself that the movie was protraying characters, not real people, even if most of the events are how it happened.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg, and Eisenberg up till now has been interchangeable with Michael Cera. Eisenberg's been in some good movies (Adventureland, Zombieland, Solitary Man), but this is the movie where he makes the leap. His Mark is cocky, insecure, intelligent, a guy we can root for him to succeed and yet root for him to fail, depending on which peer he's screwing over. With the help of his best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), he invents Facebook.

The narrative shows us first that mark is in the middle of two lawsuits, one by the Windlevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer, flawless performance and CG insertion) and one by Eduardo. As we watch, his defense against the "Windlevii" is funny, and his defense against Eduardo, we know, is going to be an ultimate betrayal.

Much, much credit needs to go to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, he of A Few Good Men and West Wing fame. His dialogue is vibrant as ever, and one of the main reasons I want to see it a second time is to relive all the good one-liners I can't bring to mind now.

Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Benjamin Button) oversees with a sneaky-good hand, and the soundtrack, co-done by Trent Reznor, was well done. Eisenberg manages to be hero and villain and is great at both. Garfield's the heart of the movie, and I think there'll be a lot less outcry over him taking over Peter Parker now. Justin Timberlake, as Napster founder Sean Parker, does a good job as the devil on Mark's shoulder, too.

I'd heard before hand that this would be a favorite to get nominations for Picture, Actor, Director, Screenplay, etc., and having seen it, I have no problem with any of those.