“FACING UP TO FACEBOOK”
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Joseph Mazzello, and Armie Hammer
Directed by: David Fincher
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language
Genre: Drama and Biopic
Running Time: 2hr
Release Date: October 1, 2010
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
By John Delia
The age of technology takes an interesting turn in The Social Network, a mesmerizing biopic about the creation of a dream that turned into a billion dollar business. It was so good and perfectly played out I found myself wanting more of the acting, directing and amazing story. The toughest part is not being able to grade the film more than excellent.
The movie centers on Harvard student Mark Zukerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) in 2003, a genus computer programmer bored with not being able to test his mind to the fullest. He constantly pokes around at ideas that will get a rise out of his fellow students. He is so brilliant that his professors are no longer challenging his capabilities.
On night while fooling around in his dorm room he comes up with a fun scheme called Face Smash, involving choosing one Harvard girl over another based on looks, and starts downloading photos from the school files. Getting access to the student emails, he sends out an email blast. In no
time the responses start to climb, so high in fact, that it shuts down the school computer network. With this power Zukerberg, along with his friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), start a networking revolution called facebook that will probably never be equaled. And that’s just the beginning of the story.
The acting here is the main reason the story work. The only way I can say it is Eisenberg gets an A+, Garfield A+ and Timberlake A+. Each actor under the strong direction of David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, The Panic Room) steals each other’s scene one after another in brilliant portrayals that are intriguing, humorous and perfectly on target.
Fincher depicts Zukerberg thru Eisenberg as this confident genius that lets nothing distract him from his task, but yet knows how to have fun doing it. The same pinpoint direction is used to create Eduardo Saverin (Garfield) who keeps up the financial end of facebook and Sean Parker (Timberlake) the Napster inventor, a wild pompous individual who makes sure Zukerberg focused on his objective.
I really couldn’t find anything negative about the film except that the true story it’s based on certainly gets embellished to it’s fullest. Rightfully so or boredom would have set in if all we watched were computer geeks writing formula after formula in order to get what we take for granted; like downloading a photo.
The film is rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language. See what I mean, no boredom here with an MPAA Rating like this.
FINAL ANALYSIS:Â A brilliant film about a brilliant guy. (5 of 5)