OnTheGOinTO

The Social Network is about as good as a movie could possibly be about creating a website. It’s not exactly stimulating cinematic fare, but director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin put everything they got into making it worthy of a cinematic treatment…and they make it work.  It’s the story of Harvard college student Mark Zuckerberg who created Facebook in his dorm room and its quick development into a social phenomenon.

This is an interesting change of pace for Fincher who previously directed more sprawling stories like Seven, The Game, Panic Room, Fight Club, and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.  In this, he’s basically got a bunch of people sitting around talking. He does a great job at keeping things moving and cutting in between legal depositions and flashbacks.

Thank goodness his characters are speaking dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin, creator of TV’s Sports Night, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, and, of course, The West Wing. Sorkin’s style of having characters speaking a mile a minute is on full display here, and it works wonders in some scenes including the very first scene of the movie. Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara display great skills in performing the rapid fast dialogue.

Eisenberg has pretty much been pigeonholed into playing these nerdy, awkward roles (much like Michael Cera), and who knows if he has any range beyond this, but this hands him his best role and he doesn’t screw it up. Eisenberg makes it look easy as he makes Mark Zuckerberg brilliant, weird, funny, and sympathetic.  The supporting cast is also stellar with future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, Archie Hammer (playing twins in a spectacular achievement in digital effects), Rashida Jones (she should be a bigger star by now), and an insanely charismatic and cool Justin Timberlake. It’s hard to say if one male stands out enough to grab a supporting nomination at the Oscars, but Mr. SexyBack comes into the movie like a force and just might soon be an Academy Award nominee.

So, sure, the writing is amazing (I’d have no problem with it winning the Best Adapted Screenplay), the direction is solid, and the acting is stellar. But at the end of the day, it’s still a movie about creating a website, and it can only achieve so much. There’s talk that this will win Best Picture at the Oscars. I can tell you right now: It Won’t. Nomination for sure, but won’t pull off the win.

Grade:  B+