Movie Review: The Social Network

In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg(Jesse Eisenberg) studies at Harvard University. One night, he breaks up with his girlfriend Erica Albright. When Mark gets back to his room, he hits upon the idea of creating a program to compare the pictures of girls and ranking them. He uses the algorithm provided by his friend Eduardo Saverin(Andrew Garfield). Within a few hours, the program is ready and uploaded onto a website named FaceMash. The program becomes a huge hit bringing down the Harvard network. Due to this, Mark is punished with academic probation. But he gets noticed by Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.

The Winklevoss twins and Narendra approaches Mark to work on their website named Harvard Connection. After listening to their idea, Mark approaches Eduardo to start “thefacebook”. Eduardo funds the project with $1000. Mark works on the project and is available to the Winklevoss twins and Narendra. Within a few days, “thefacebook” goes live and becomes an instant hit. When the Winklevoss twins and Narendra gets to know about this, they are infuriated. Narendra wants legal action but one of the Winklevoss twins disagrees. As the website become popular, Mark plans to expand while Eduardo plans to make money from advertisements. Very soon, the website catches the attention of Sean Paker(Justin Timberlake), the creator of Napster. The rest of the movie deals with the success behind Facebook and the two major legal hassles it has to deal with.

David Fincher directs this movie based on screenplay by Aaron Sorkin which is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Millionaires. David tells us a riveting story behind the inception and subsequent success of the social networking site. He uses a non-linear format where the story shifts from the scenes where Zuckerberg deals with the lawyers representing the parties suing him to the actual story. In spite of knowing the history, this style keeps the viewer in suspense and also attentive.

Jesse Eisenberg steals the show with his depiction of an unapologetic and focused Mark Zuckerberg. Jesse’s Mark believes in a dream and will work hard to achieve success. Jesse is able to successfully portray the cold blooded nature while exposing vulnerable nature also. Andrew Garfield as Eduardo impresses. Andrew’s Eduardo trusts his friend blindly. But he is also impulsive which brings down the friendship.

Go for it! The history might not be accurate. But it is still an engrossing watch. The movie is a conversational one. So, make sure the movie hall has good acoustics.

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Rating: ****

Tags: Movies,Jesse Eisenberg,Andrew Garfield,Justin Timberland,David Fincher,Drama