The Social Network Puts a Face on Facebook

For a start, he went into college -- college in this case being Harvard College -- instead going to work for AOL or Microsoft straight out of high school (which for Zuckerberg meant Phillips Exeter Academy). At 26 he's one of the world's youngest billionaires, and his net worth is greater than the GDP of Burundi.

But, if he were ordinary, Aaron Sorkin wouldn't be writing him.

The Social Network -- directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), written by Sorkin, and based on Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires -- chronicles the early days of Facebook. It's less a biopic than a tale of two lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg: the ConnectU suit and a suit brought by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. These two suits provide the narrative glue from which the overall picture emerges.

Zuckerberg (played by Zombieland's Jesse Eisenberg) is portrayed as serious, intense, and brilliant, but also difficult to like. He seems oblivious to the feelings of others, including Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who in addition to being Zuckerberg's only close friend provides Facebook's early financial backing. Socially, he's isolated and a bit clueless, but he's also possessed of an unwavering faith in his own point of view that doesn't border on arrogance so much as it invades and sets up its own government.

It isn't just Zuckerberg, though. Aside from Saverin, who is cast more or less as the wounded party (and was a primary source for Mezrich's book), there's nary a sympathetic party in sight.

Zuckerberg's opponents in the ConnectU suit, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (twins played by Armie Hammer) have the sort of status that Zuckerberg initially seeks to attain through developing clever web applications at Harvard. Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), whose involvement in Facebook eventually precipitates the lawsuit inducing falling-out between Saverin and Zuckerberg, is the West Coast Mephistopheles to Zuckerberg's East Coast Faust. Perhaps it's a sign of the times, but never has American pop culture looked quite so much like Russian realist literature.

Visually, The Social Network is delicious. Fincher's palette never feels light, even once the story moves to California. Armie Hammer's work as both of the Winklevoss twins feels seamless, which is a credit to the camera crew, the film's post-production, and actors as well as Fincher's direction. Andrew Garfield's casting as Saverin is inspired. The film's score (by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) is lush and tense in all the right places.

The Social Network rises above its premise as "that movie about Facebook." It's not perfect: those familiar with social blogging applications like LiveJournal may snicker a little bit near the beginning of the film, and moviegoers unprepared for technobabble may find themselves lost or bored now and again. The Social Network is also a very smart, very dialogue-heavy film; viewers who didn't like The West Wing because it was full of talking and politics probably won't like this either. However, those who did probably will; Sorkin's writing is practically a character in its own right.

That may be a caveat in itself. The Social Network isn't really about the truth. It's a work of art based on a controversial book, and both Sorkin and a publicist for The Accidental Billionaires have copped to aiming for a good story rather than veracity. This isn't bad in itself, but a wise viewer might best be served by engaging it as an interesting piece of historical fiction that just happens to take place less than a decade ago.

Overall, The Social Network is an exceptional film about exceptional people. It's beautifully executed, and while it's not really a film to identify with, it is a unique window into the things and people who've shaped our present. I came away with a sense of how delicate and strange history and relationships -- especially when someone in the equation becomes successful -- can be. It's a zeitgeist film, human enough to have broad appeal, and definitely worth attention.