Okay Geek Farm
Movie Review - The Social Network
Nick MaharBy now, I think we all know what the movie The Social Network is about. In 2003 a man named Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, started a company now known as Facebook - a 25 billion dollar company that would have the 4th largest population if it were a country. The movie focuses on Zuckerberg’s life as a sophomore in college where he first started coding for the site. The movie also includes two legal battles against Zuckerberg; one where his best friend Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, is suing him for cheating him out of the company. The second battle involves Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss, both played by Armie Hammer, who sues Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook.
As a director myself, I can testify that this movie, as a box office film and not a documentary, is thrilling, well written, and fully engaging based on my own reaction. The audience can relate especially because it’s directed to the college students who helped create Facebook into what it is today, and future internet superstars. But as mentioned in the get go of this paragraph, this is not a documentary. Facts, events, and even the way Zuckerberg is even portrayed does pan off far from reality.
The film starts out with Zuckerberg on a date with Erica Albright who helps start Zuckerberg’s coding rampage. Zuckerberg comes off as arrogant, well-educated, but sadly socially in-nap. Later on you start to feel sorry for the guy because he doesn’t have any real friends. He is conned by Napster creator Sean Parker, played beautifully by Justin Timberlake. Parker is the antagonist within the film and slowly creeps into Zuckerberg’s mind. Parker ends up controlling Zuckerberg so much that he gets Zuckerberg to cut his best friend and co-founder’s shares. He went from 30% share hold to .07%.
“The Social Network” Sound Design
As we showed in a recent article, the sound design got specific detail. The director really wanted to hear the sounds of a college campus and Ruby Skies in San Francisco to be loud like a real club. The music to support the many dialouge scenes was equally creative with each song being broken down into individual instruments that allowed them to pick and choose what sound they wanted and when.
The rest of the film is filled with great cinematography, some tilt-shift shots, and an intriguing, captivating story, to say the least. While it may not be an accurate representation of what Facebook is really about or any other of the people actually behind it, I highly recommend the film as a popcorn flick that just happens to be about Facebook, but it’s a definite watch.
