The Social Network
When trailers for a movie about the boom of Facebook first appeared, some scoffed at the prospect of dishing out money to watch the story of something still so green in its development. However, author and Harvard graduate Ben Mezrich had already penned a chronicle of the controversial start of the website with The Accidental Billionaires. Even if Mezrich’s book had some great water cooler information due to the court documents he received of the scuffle between Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the story was very one-sided.
See, Saverin served as Mezrich’s consultant, so there was a natural bias against Facebook’s CEO. Zuckerberg declined to be interviewed for Mezrich’s book and since his voice is a pivotal one, Billionaires suffered as a result. With David Fincher’s The Social Network, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin focused on Zuckerberg as the protagonist, extrapolating his own research to fill in some of the gaps that Mezrich could not complete.
With Sorkin’s snappy, intelligent dialogue and Jesse Eisenberg’s fascinating performance – filled with pride and high-strung ego, so that we admire his brilliance while despising his lack of humanity – Zuckerberg gets a multi-faceted portrayal. Sorkin even structures much of the story around the legal battle, flashing back when a point of difference is made so that the audience can judge Zuckerberg’s level of guilt or innocence.
The Social Network is not just a film with exceptional acting, writing and directing. It moves beyond the limits of Mezrich’s bestseller by inserting dark irony and more dimensions to the enigmatic Facebook CEO.