The new movie about Facebook will leave users more bored than entertained. The Social Networkhas an all-star cast with a less than stellar plot.
The film focuses on the story of Mark Zuckerberg (played by Zombielandand Adventure Land‘s Jesse Eisenberg) and the creation of his phenomenal website. As a student in Harvard, he gets dumped by his girlfriend (played by Rooney Mara) for being less than a gentleman, rather than a nerd desperate to get into one of the university’s exclusive social clubs.
Feeling rejected and slightly intoxicated, Zuckerberg hacks into Harvard’s security networks and creates a website that pits two female classmates against each other, allowing others to rate them based on appearances. In a matter of hours, the site sparks the attention of three fellow classmates: twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (played by Max Minghella) who approach Zuckerberg with a new social network website idea, exclusive to Harvard students. Zuckerberg then takes the idea and alters it to create Facebook, with the financial help from his friend Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield).
While trying to expand their new exclusive website, Zuckerberg and Saverin meet Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake), the creator of the controversial site Napster. Parker helps them go from potential millionaires to potential billionaires. However, Saverin finds himself being left out of the equation which leads them to several lawsuits and a copyright dispute over whose brilliant idea Facebook really was.
The actors were all surprisingly good with what they were given, and the overall production of the movie was sleek and smooth, which was expected from director David Fincher.
The movie cleverly uses flashbacks as a transition in two different timelines between the creation of the site and the present time when Zuckerberg is battling two lawsuits simultaneously. The flashbacks help illustrate the reasons why Zuckerberg is so lonely and anti-social despite being the creator of one of the biggest social networks.
At the start of Eisenberg’s career it seemed as if he was going to be another Michael Cera, playing the same awkwardly endearing characters. However Eisenberg has managed to show a deeper emotion to his Zuckerberg character whereas Cera’s characters usually fall flat.
Timberlake was another actor who managed to convey deeper emotions in his character as well. He definitely had the suave appeal to play the charming Parker and his execution of the character’s desperation to get back into the website business was performed well with great subtlety.
Garfield’s performance in The Social Networkdefinitely impressed many which will help gather an audience for his impending Spiderman movie. Even the smaller roles were played well by their actors. Hammer played both Winklevoss twins and managed to fool audiences into thinking there were actually two different characters.
Brenda Song even makes an appearance and momentarily sheds her long-time Disney image as Saverin’s crazy girlfriend.
However, even at their best, the performers were still limited by the subject matter. The problem with The Social Networklies in its story. Despite the movie being about the creation of Facebook and how it has dominated the realm of social networking, it seemed to leave audiences with more unanswered questions about the site. The Social Networkis not worth the money or time, which would probably be better spent on Facebook anyway.
