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“The Social Network’ Depicts A lot of Antisocial Behavior

By Sandra Olmsted

Although director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin exceed expectations regarding the challenge of making a movie about a writer, albeit a writer of computer code, the courtroom drama which provides the structure for The Social Network lacks both the drama and the courtroom.

After a too-brief opening which sets up the story of how Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, turned his social inadequacies, immaturity, and brilliant programing skills into a fledgling social networking site—which eventually becomes the Facebook empire— the film switches to high priced lawyers’ conference room.

In this conference room, the lawsuits against Zuckerberg are negotiated, and plaintiffs tell their tales.  First, there are the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (both played by Armie Hammer), spoiled, privileged, obnoxious, and arrogant frat boys, who think Zuckerberg stole their idea for an exclusive, elitist “scoring” network and turned it into Facebook.  Even though their arrogance and elitism makes one wish the twins were being ripped off, they do have what seems, in this fictionalized account, to be a legitimate claim.

The second lawsuit is brought by Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg’s once and only friend, who was cut out of the Facebook corporation by Zuckerberg’s blind admiration of Napster creator Sean Parker, played with a cloying and downright creepy niceness by Justin Timberlake.  Parker hijacks the fledgling Facebook and orchestrates Saverin’s ouster.  As each person testifies, the story predictably flashes back to the described events.  The flashbacks provide an interesting narrative structure because the two cases are interwoven and cut together to provide a clear, but fictionalized, picture of Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook.

While it is true that Saverin and the Winklevoss twins received settlements, it is unclear exactly where truth and fiction begin and end in terms of the film’s account of Zuckerberg’s founding of Facebook.  However, Zuckerberg, the real Mark Zuckerberg, did not cooperate with the films production, and Saverin and the Winklevoss twins could not discuss the events.  Therefore, there are some questions regarding the accuracy of the film’s unflattering portrayal of Zuckerberg and his actions.  In fact, it is hard to find a sympathetic character in this lot although Saverin comes the closest as the best friend, cofounder, one-time CFO, and first, and at one time, only investor of the startup company.

Garfield’s performance provides the audience with both a contrast to Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg and an emotional anchor in the film.  Zuckerberg, the character, is not portrayed as a hero or sympathetic in anyway.  The film’s Zuckerberg is a social outcast, not because he’s a nerdy computer guy, which he is, but because he’s jerk.

Erica (Rooney Mara), the Boston University coed, who rightly dumps him in the opening scene, makes this clear to Zuckerberg and impels him, in a fit of adolescent rage, to get even with her and all the women of Harvard with a website, Facemach, which rates them on looks, thus proving that Erica was right.

Eisenberg’s has the unenviable task of playing an antihero who is unable to connect on an emotional level.  Eisenberg shows his character’s primarily negative emotions, such as anger, revenge, blind trust, infatuation, obsession, cynicism, disrespect, self-righteousness, egocentrism, etc. by ignoring the people and events around him, sarcastic comebacks, burying his head in his laptop, and not looking others in the eyes, unless he’s glaring angrily at them.

One glimmer of emotion, or perhaps business sense, comes when Zuckerberg realizes he has bet on the wrong horse by blindly trusting Parker.  Eisenberg does an excellent job of making his Zuckerberg compelling to watch, which works well with the morals of the story.

There are two old saws:  Money can’t buy love, and nice guys finish last.  However, it is the new ones that are disturbing:  No one believes a jerk even when he tells the truth, and if one ends up rich, friends don’t matter, which is ironic since Facebook is all about how many strangers one can “friend.”

The Social Network, a Columbia Pictures release, runs 120 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and language.

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