There are films, books or songs that societies hurl into the limelight from time to time. Some, like "Mambo Number Five", are novelty nonsense. Others, like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and The Da Vinci Code have a little bit more to say. The extent to which they speak to us as cultural documents depends on how closely you look at them, I think. Kurt Cobain's diffident howl became the grunge anthem; a rallying cry for youth who were certainly disaffected, if hardly disenfranchised. The Da Vinci Code, probably defined a particular yearning even more appositely; an age determined to find meaning, but only from within the most simplistic and superficial of narratives.
The Social Network is different. It is a complex, richly layered film, propelled by the kinds of glaring and essential contradictions necessary to meaningfully explore so nuanced a social phenomenon as the birth of Facebook, and the wayward souls present at its conception. At the film's heart is Aaron Sorkin's impeccably written dialogue, whose rapid-fire pacing and pithy inflections should be immediately familiar to anyone who enjoyed his work on The West Wing. The sheer quantity of words in the film is at times almost overwhelming, but they give the film not only a richly intellectual depth, but also a surging sense frustration, a quality which seems to gnaw at almost all of the hearts of the film's numerous antagonists. (I'm not sure that anyone in this film is fully deserved of being considered a protagonist.)
In terms of its genre stylings, The Social Network is impressively hard to pin down. At times, it seems redolent of Martin Scorcese's underworld epic, Goodfellas, with its giddying rise and inevitable (of a sorts) fall; whilst at others, it feels almost like a mystery, in the sense that whilst the end of the tale is known, the journey to it remains obscured and alluring. That some critics have noted parallels with Citizen Kane isn't all that surprising, really; at its heart, this film is a meditation on the connection between the all-consuming self-doubt and an insatiable desire of greed. It's also a film which, for all of its indie, Gen-Y riffage, is epic in its thematic scope. This film is trying to do no less that to capture the soul of a generation, and both dissect and eulogise it simultaneously. That it succeeds is nothing short of astonishing.
Its narrative rotates between two court cases - which provide the film with its expository backbone - and the real-time events which those those court cases witheringly scrutinise. Consequently, the motivations behind Facebook's creation are portrayed as being hollowly financial and self-aggrandising at best, and spitefully vituperative at worst. And yet, the central figure, Mark Zuckerberg, emerges as a character who, whilst difficult to love, is even harder to dismiss. When others - particularly much older, adversarial lawyers - seek to ignore, malign or defame him, it's almost impossible love his sharply barbed replies.
Actually, as I watched the film, I couldn't help but consider the resemblance between Mark Zuckerberg, and another zeitgeist-defining geek; The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper. Both are intellectual geniuses who struggle to navigate the social world. But the key difference is telling: Sheldon's belief in his own self worth is unwavering, due in no small part to his dedicated coterie of friends who support his every move, in spite of their considerable frustrations with him. In contrast, Zuckerberg's status as an extremely gifted young man is offset by the cold reality of his being essentially an unloved loner, and it is easy to see that whilst he believes his abilities should afford him far great social respect and status, it only takes a few minutes with him to see why such rarefied validations were always going to be elusive. Kudos to Jesse Eisenberg, who plays him with so compelling a blend of intellectual arrogance and social insecurity.
In fact, all of the film's actors are deserved of praise. Of particular note is Justin Timberlake's convincing performance as Sean Parker, who is portrayed as a sage-like demigod for the star-struck Zuckerberg. It's telling that in one night-club scene, Parker's telling prediction that Facebook will be generation-defining phenomenon, that the lighting employed gives him appearance a distinctly devilish hue.
The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is also impressive in helping to give unfolding tale a sense of excitement and anticipation that is imbued with an almost tragic blend of the sad and the sinister. And it is sinister, the extent to which a socially polarising phenomenon begins to reveal itself as not only one of the greatest cash cows in history, but also as something indicative of the hollow centre at the core of the social networking experience.
The story is actually pretty simple; lawyers pick over the bones of the lost friendship between Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founder (and initial financier) Eduardo Saverin. These two young men - who never really seem to understand each other - ultimately give the film its heart, and render it, in a sense, in keeping with the archetypal tales of lost love and friendship. Their final confrontation is vicious, human, and utterly Shakespearean in its scope and power. Think Wall Street for 2010, but without the bathos. This is film is all sinew and muscle; not fat on bone.
I know that this film is garnering almost unanimously glowing reviews. It truly deserves them. But whether or not it captures the public imagination in the same way is less certain. It's no Avatar, that's for sure. But in a way, at their hearts, each film's story is all too familiar, and all too sad. In many ways, The Social Network has captured the spirit of the age as successfully as any text has done so, at any time in history. It's not a joyous ride, but it's a riveting one, and one that will certainly have you laughing out loud on numerous occasions if you simply love language even half as much as I do. It'll also invite you to think long and hard over the nature of friendship, and the impact of social networking sites on the reality of interpersonal experiences. We shouldn't need to see characters as socially inept or as limply misogynistic as Zuckerberg to appreciate that any mechanism which depersonalises human interaction - especially in an age where instant gratification is rapidly becoming an expected right - can cause no end of problems, but in case we do, thank heavens this film exists.
It's a film I'm going to have to see again. And probably again. If you've got half a brain, go at see it at the movies.
It (your brain) will thank you.
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