Film Review: THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Eduardo & Mark

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Josh Pence, Rooney Mara
Director: David Fincher

The Story: The film is based on the book ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich. Mark Zuckerburg (Jesse Eisenberg) and his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) have an argument at the bar and they break up. Mark gets so upset that he posts a blog about Erica. His anger still unspent, Mark hacks into the Harvard University database and creates Facemash – a photo-sharing website and gets 22,000 hits in just 2 hours. His only intent is to humiliate Erica. While Mark is pulled up for hacking into secure networks, everyone in and outside campus gets to know about him. The Winklevoss twins (played by Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) have an idea for a social network and approach Mark with it. He agrees to work for them. But before that, he adapts their idea to create ‘The Facebook’. A grand sum of $1000 is invested by Mark’s best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) and they enter a partnership of 70:30. The social network is a success from Day One while it had taken Mark a bare 6 weeks to get it in place. Things begin to get out of hand when Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), founder of Napster – an online music website – gets in touch with Mark. Mark and Sean hit it off immediately while Eduardo hates the very sight of the newcomer. A new contract is set up as The Facebook snowballs into the most popular social networking site. Eduardo signs for 0.03% share of the profits without realising what he is doing. Things turn ugly when Mark is taken to court by both his best friend and the Winklevoss twins. The rest of the film is all about how things get settled for The Accidental Billionaire who has already raked in $ 7 Billion after but a few months of floating his website.

My Perception: What can I say? I was spellbound by the movie. The Social Network ran for exactly 2 hours with crisp dialogues and superb acting.

Jesse Eisenberg did such a wonderful job of playing Mark. The quiet anger that he portrays when his girlfriend leaves him, keeping a cool head during the law proceedings, his smart-alec answers to everyone around, his loyalty to Eduardo, his instant friendship with Sean – he was just superb in just about every scene. I just loved the way he is quite chilled despite the billions growing in his bank.

Andrew Garfield as the hurt and humiliated Eduardo does an excellent job. The rest of the cast also played their roles very well.

There was not one extra scene or an out-of-place dialogue that one could complain about. You need to stay alert while the film is on if you don’t want to miss anything important – that’s every second of the movie. The film takes the viewer back and forth during the court proceedings and the story is built in flashbacks.

Verdict: Just awesome! Don’t miss this one in the theatres. I am planning to see it again soon.

Rating: ****** (That 6 stars and the rating is Stupendous)

* Silly
** Shaky
*** Smart
**** Snazzy
***** Super