Hello all my shway-keteers! (wow, that needs work). I know it’s been a LONG time but I’m back in what I THINK is “the saddle” and I’m ready to start the bloggin’ once again. I’ve decided to add reviews to the site for a very significant reason: I think it’s all I have left to offer. After I made the startling discovery of what the kids are calling “the Twitter,” I realized that anything that I could want to share or distribute over the internet could be done in 140 characters or less. Film, however, my most lasting love in this life, yearns to be discussed. Film and television and entertainment, as a whole, cannot be critiqued or evaluated in passing. It needs elaboration. So I’m going to start throwing the proverbial hat in the critic’s ring, in the hopes of expressing what I feel is (terribly) wrong with cinema (maybe even some things that are right. Yay?) My approach is simple. I will discuss the piece in general, its flaws, positives, indifferent moments, then I will rate it on a scale of 100. 100 being a perfect movie, 50 being an average movie and 0 being one of the worst movies ever made, a completely inconceivable pile of filth that didn’t deserve the print it was delivered on. So don’t think of it as a grading scale, think of it as a full, 100 point bell curve. AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNDDDDD we’re off!!!
David Fincher has a knack for making mainstream movies both beautiful and relevant. This is a skill that is absolutely paramount to acquire in the industry as Hollywood generally ends up splitting the bill during the fiscal year, funding a plethora of movies geared solely towards profit margins, as well as a more meager slate of flicks designed to seduce the academy towards the end of the year in order to keep the studio in a ‘respectable’ light. His filmography reads of some of the most successful films (both financially and critically) in the past decade. Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and now, The Social Network. The through-line in most of his work, is an attention to pace and fluidity. Fincher is nothing if not masterfully-kinetic. He can take a dialogue-deluged script and shuttle it along at speeds reminiscent of Michael Bay or Brett Ratner, while STILL maintaining the story’s integrity, imagine that!
A fairly base hypothesis for why the man has such a mastery over his craft would lie in the years of time he spent as a music video director for roughly ten years from the late 80′s to the early 90′s. Being forced to tell a story in around three minutes with little to no dialogue set to music is a task that will develop a sense of energy in your work. Just ask any film school grad. And while these are all simply wild hypotheses, I seem to be able to feel fully validated in them as The Social Network exists entirely almost as one long, beautifully shot music video. That’s not to take anything away from the movie, necessarily, it just speaks to the overall tone that Fincher has set, and I want to believe that that tone is set from an intentional, psychological place.
My generation, one of the very first to basically grow up with Facebook (To date myself, I first signed on to Facebook my senior year of high school. I was attending a university during high school so I had a .edu e-mail address, allowing me access), seems to have become defined by our succinct attention spans and constant yearning for diversity and multiplicity in all facets of life. We work fast, we play fast, we rest fast, and if something isn’t up to our immediately-gratified standards, we have no problem trimming away the fat, throwing away the fluff, and digging in to something else, something more immediate, something more enticing. The internet, the very overarching topic of discussion in The Social Network, has given us every bit of information and ability to create/interact with the rest of the world.
And this is precisely how Fincher’s latest endeavor feels. It feels like a 120-minute-long music video hurtling along at a 3-minute video’s pace. And yet, it never feels sloppy. It never feels forced. Fincher is able to fully realize his world, in his time, on his terms within this seemingly expanded frame. Of course, he also had all the pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly together, as well. Trent Reznor’s score is a spot-on parallel for the action onscreen. Every feeling, memory, and discussion caught on film seems to be perfectly buoyed by Reznor’s techno-tronic score. While they highlight the different moments of each beat perfectly, they also manage to retain a sense of universality and act as a thread throughout the entirety of the production in order to keep the pace marching forward. The overall emotion and ‘feel’ of the film itself is, ironically, conveyed through one of the most mechanized, digital scores of all time. And yet, it works. It perfectly works.
The cast of this film is quite impressive, as well. Jesse Eisenberg has yet to disappoint me as he plays an emotionally disjointed version of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. Eisenberg does a perfect job of bringing screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s interpretation of Zuckerberg to full-form as an emotionally misguided, driven, slightly misogynistic genius who sees the world in less than a three-dimensional sense but, instead, more of a binary code. Andrew Garfield, our Godsend of a new Peter Parker, plays Eduardo Saverin. Zuckerberg’s only true friend and the start-up CFO of thefacebook.com. Garfield handles himself so well in the part of the ironically emotional and turbulent business end of the company, trying to act as a moral compass for Zuckerberg who he worries is simply getting swept up in the tides of the of fame as Facebook begins to become a larger and larger monster of itself.
And the supporting cast really adds so much to this film, as well, Rashida Jones works perfectly as the inevitable angel of reason to Zuckerberg’s beastly temperament. Justin Timberlake continues to bowl over the competition by playing the greasy, snarky, but strangely-likable Sean Parker, founder of Napster, and one of the original entrepreneurs of the peer-to-peer revolution. And Max Minghella, Josh Pence, and Armie Hammer respectfully play the suing trio behind Harvard Connection who look to profit off of Zuckerberg’s fortune.
The acting is absolutely spot-on, and is a testament to Fincher’s casting abilities and his artistic prowess as a director of actors. Eisenberg shines the brightest in his highly nuanced, yet specified portrayal of Zuckerberg, yet this is perfectly acceptable, given the weight which Eisenberg is expected to uphold. The glaring problem that The Social Network does run into is it’s slight emotional disconnect with audiences. What is usually a monumental cinematic fault really becomes nothing more than a blemish on Fincher’s otherwise fabulous narrative. In what may have been an effort, or even an after-effect, of producing a film centering on Generation Facebook’s digital dependency, The Social Network at times feels as though it is moving too fast or glazing over moments too casually that otherwise may desire to be fleshed out in other works. And yet, that’s exactly what this entire parable of Fincher’s is all about. In the age of instantaneous ALL things do move faster than we may desire them to, things may get lost in translation. All we can do is sift through what we have and do the best to make moments of connection happen in an age where people feel much more comfortable giving out a webpage than a phone number.
It should also be noted that Sorkin’s script is not one for accuracy, in multiple facets. While no one knows PRECISELY how the story went down, it should be noted that glaring inconsistencies have already been brought up with certain key elements of the film. Zuckerberg has denied any wanted involvement of his own in attending any of the final clubs that the film almost seems to base his creation of Facebook on. Zuckerberg is still with his Chinese-American girlfriend that was actually with him as Facebook was coming to fruition. There is no failed relationship debacle with a one, Erica Albright, which caused Zuckerberg to spiral out of contral that one, fateful night. Further, Sorkin seems to turn his girlfriend into a Facebook groupie, painting her as nothing more than a clinger-on after Facebook’s founder begins to reap the enormous rewards of his work. While there are considerably others that I have been told of yet I am not adroit enough to have caught, it stands to be noted that Zuckerberg is painted in an increasingly negative light. He is an anti-hero, at best, and the overall arch of the story is in the hopes that Zuckerberg will ‘see the light’ and realize the error of his ways. It does an incredible job of making a story more fantastical, it just doesn’t seem fair to base a character off of an actual human figure and then paint in such a light with such distinct colors.
All that aside, The Social Network is an excellent cinematic achievement that manages to bring together all the filmic ingredients that best make a ‘good’ movie. The flick’s tone, thematic construct, and score are among some of it’s strongest moments and give it an absolute edge over most of the other entries into 2010′s moviescape.
Performances: 88/100
Cinematography: Aesthetics: 84/100
Score: 94/100
Script: 80/100
Final: 84/100
