If you were in college from 2004-2006 you probably remember the moment it happened. You probably remember exactly when facebook hit your campus and changed everything.. from the way people socialized to the way you got a hold of someone to the way you got help with an assignment to the way you dated to the way you took pictures. If you're around the ages of 24-28, call us "the facebook generation".. when a new and revolutionary social networking tool completely changed the way people interact with one another. This movie is the story of how that happened. How a couple of nerds from Harvard created possibly the greatest idea of our generation. How a guy who couldn't keep a girlfriend became the youngest billionaire on the planet. I'm not going to lie - I was not excited at all to see this one. First, I find Jesse Eisenberg to be obnoxious. He damn near ruined "Zombieland" for me with his twitchy spastic shtick and not-quite Aspbergers. Second, how could a movie about the creation of a website be engaging and entertaining enough for the feature-length picture, even if said website is one I use basically every day? Third, director David Fincher is more miss than hit for me. Love Fight Club, love Se7en, hate Benjamin Button, hate Panic Room and hate Zodiac. I don't really like Alien cubed either. So basically I saw it because it was free and because these passes were WAY in advance.. but boy am I glad I did.
This movie is so much better than a film about the creation of a website should be. This is largely due to the often frantic script (written by Aaron "the West Wing" Sorkin) pitch-perfect casting and acting and a nearly pitch-perfect tone. The story opens in the fall of '03 with the genesis of what ultimately would become Facebook on one late drunken night in a Harvard dorm as Mark Zuckerberg, spurned by his now-ex, fumes online. After Zuckerberg's hastily thrown together Facemash crashes the Harvard servers, it becomes apparent that the college social landscape hungers for a means of eased online interaction (and hell, stalking).
The film is told through a series of vignettes as the various parties involved recount their stories through varying depositions, with plenty of witty banter (the vast majority of it coming from Zuckerberg) accompanying. This narrative device allows the film to rather seamlessly jump from month to month, highlight to highlight without getting bogged down in the mundane. Best friends and co-founders Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew "The new Peter Parker" Garfield) build Facebook from literally nothing, and gradually grow apart as the more short-sighted Saverin is forced out by more visionary and ambitious figures (mainly "Napster" co-founder Sean Parker) thrust Zuckerberg into Silicon Valley's upper echelons and he leaves the dorm room far behind.
This really is a terrific film. Eisenberg and Timberlake (who plays the charming yet smarmy Parker) are both perfectly cast and hit every note just right. Garfield is more than capable as the somewhat tragic Saverin figure. The story moves along at the right pace - never feeling slow or boring (which can be a problem for Fincher). My complaints: the PG-13 rating felt forced. These are college kids, partying and hanging out. That scene is not a PG-13 one. Also, at times the tone of the film didn't feel right. It felt a bit too dark and mournful for what is, in effect, one of the great success stories of our time. The score and lighting felt ominous at times when there was no threat on the horizon. Ultimately though, this film is capably directed, superbly acted, superbly written, and it manages to tell and say something without preaching. Zuckerberg is neither hero nor villain, he is an opportunistic genius who seized the day and screwed over a couple of people along the way. That feels so much more appropriate for this day and age. This is a top 3 or 4 movie I've seen in 2010.
8.5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment