We lived on farms and then we lived in cities and now we are going to live on the internet!
– Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake)
When I first heard that someone had made a film about Mark Zuckerberg and his evolution from Harvard attendee to one of the most powerful men on the planet (at least in our current digital reality), I was barely interested. Sure, it looked alright, cast Jesse Eisenberg (who I only knew as ‘that awkward guy’) and had a cool poster but apart from that, it was lacking. And then one day I sat down and watched it and oh, how could I have been more wrong.
The Social Network is something else. It is one of those rare creations in which the cold, hard truth is twisted into the fabric of a tragedy, an exaggeration of the past and yet truly faithful to it. It challenges our preconceptions of this young billionaire and presents a side most biopics fail to challenge for fear of tarnishing the name of their subject, highlighting the climb to success while simultaneously dragging us down further and further until we too are completely lost in our own blindness. Through this masterwork, Fincher portrays the pressures of not only success on the individual but of those in the immediate vicinity of their own ‘social networks’, and how damaging and desolate such fame can be.
While Eisenberg excels in his role as Zuckerberg (I’m starting to think they’re twins) and Sorkin’s script flows beautifully through every scene, it is the nuanced nature of Reznor’s and Ross’s soundtrack that permeates every moment, transcending the surface value portrayed and elevating each frame to that of an illustrious work of art. Each track is gracefully placed and rises in tempo with the cacophony of emotion, adding an uneasy ambience that further drives the narrative, propelling it closer to the denouement that is, arguably, never reached.
Overall, this is a deeply moving, introspective view on the workings of the mind and life of one of the most influential creators of the 21st century and, in my opinion, is absolutely essential to any selection of films from the past 50 years.
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