Movie Review: The Social Network

For anyone wondering how Mark Zuckerberg became the world's youngest billionaire ever off a service that is offered to it's customers for free, The Social Network offers little information. For those seeking a drama based on how facebook was conceived, this movie delivers. On paper, it is 'matter of fact" in the Aaron Sorkin style rather than Oliver Stone's "in your face",yet,it somehow keeps your attention as it shuffles between court dispositions and the evolution of how facebook became the cultural phenomonon that it is now.

Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg is the main character, a brilliant but socially awkward young man. He is not someone who you would want to have a beer with or have sympathy for. After posting rude comments on the internet about the girl who had just dumped him and about the women at Harvard in general, Zuckerberg seems oblivous to the disdain shown toward him. Zuckerberg's partner-in-crime Eduardo Saverin (played by Adam Garfield), on the other hand, is a very likable sympathetic character who tries to keep Zuckerberg down to earth while seeking advertising revenue to make Zuckerberg's venture work. Eduardo's personality contrasts to Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake), the founder of Napster, who seems tries to encourage Zuckerberg to expand big, think later. The preppy athletic Winklevoss twins were both played by Armie Hammer. The Winkelvosses are fellow Harvard students who are suing Zuckerberg claiming that he stole their idea for a campus link up site, after inviting Zuckerman to bring his technical expertise in the early stages.

The main attraction of the movie is that we are all familiar with what facebook is today. Even a movie of this quality would probably not work if it was about an unknown product.