David Fincher’s Social Network is a zeitgeist film, a tale of the moment, defined by a tantalizing puzzle of fact, fiction, and myth.
Full of ambiguities, it’s a story without clear-cut morals, heroes, or villains.
Made for grown-ups, It’s talky, brainy movie about ambitious (and greedy) computer nerds.
The pre-credit sequence qualifies as one of the most impressive sequences of simple cinematic narrative, which sets the tine foir the ensuing proceedings.
Two students who are dating share a drink together and engage in a fast conversation, which quickly gets sour and takes the wrong turn, signaling the end of their affair and, more importantly, the beginning of a new, revolutionary technological era–social media.
The opening is so compelling that it makes us hooked from the first moment, eager to see how the saga will evolve or devolve.
It shows Fincher’s skills in manipulating audiences’ expectations, while trying to explain and control a situation that had gotten out of control.
Jesse Eisenberg excels in play an anti-hero/hero, a bright, fast-talking, corner-cutting, endlessly insecure computer geek.
He talks with the rat-a-tat speed that recalls Jimmy Cagney’s delivery in his crime-gangster movies!
He is the leader of a group of brilliant youngsters, full of ideas that they are burning to execute, and possibly too smart for their own good, at least as far as maintaining their humanity and keeping their loyalty to friends.
Eisenberg demonstrates the irony of a boy (not quite a mature man yet), who somehow turned the word “friend” into a verb, but was not very adept himself at making or keeping friends.
Is he a hero or anti-hero?
A driven visionary or a thief and a jerk, or a combination of both.
