The Social Network: A Quick Review
Marylin Delpy: The site got 2200 hits within 2 hours?
Mark Zuckerberg: Thousand.
Marylin Delpy: I’m sorry?
Mark Zuckerberg: Twenty-two *thousand*.
I saw The Social Network tonight with my girlfriend, and I tried to go into the movie with a clear head. After the better part of the year watching the trailers, reading the rumours about what was contained in the movie, and hearing about how they were going to portray Mark Zuckerberg in the movie, I went into it feeling a bit skeptical that it would be any good. It is certainly a good movie to watch, with a few small caveats.
I only read one review of this movie before hand, written by Jeff Jarvis (who I have written about before). I was a bit curious to read his thoughts on the movie after how highly regarded he held Mark Zuckerberg in his book (What Would Google Do) and through his discussion on shows like This Week in Google (TWiG). Like me, he does recommend people see it, but points out that not everything is accurate. Troubling for him is how Aaron Sorkin, the writer, treated the movie as fiction, not a documentary. Both Jarvis and Leo Laporte on the latest TWiG pointed out that Zuckerberg had a girlfriend during the time Facebook was created, and it was not a wild party ride for them. They also created some context for his involvement with some of the key players in Facebook’s early years.
Jeff Jarvis’ main criticism of the movie is that it doesn’t explain why Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook.
The movie quickly admits that money doesn’t matter to Zuckerberg. So why did he build Facebook? The Social Network offers no answer, except perhaps that an outsider wanted in, but that doesn’t begin to explain what he has accomplished and why; that’s nothing but simplistic prime-time plotting. The script says nothing about him wanting to connect the world or bring communities elegant organization. It doesn’t care. For this is a movie about tactics, not strategy, about people doing hard things to each other. Elsewhere, that’s just called business.
After watching the movie, I don’t think you need to explain the why behind it, even if there is one. I think one fault of our society is that we believe everything is pre-meditated. We want to believe that someone or a group sit down to plan something out and then carry that plan out to completion. But there are times when people sit around, talk things out, and find ways to do things better than someone else, or want to expend their excess energy on a project that excites them.
At times, those people may strike a chord and come up with something that they fully don’t understand themselves. I think that is what Facebook was at the time of its creation. It was a site like MySpace, Friendster, etc. but cooler. What made it cool was how exclusive it was, but making something exclusive to make it special isn’t a new concept. Clubs have done this throughout history either by creating secret societies or creating the appearance that their club is in high demand through long line-ups outside. There is even a scene in the movie that demonstrates this exclusivity with the club young Zuckerberg wants to join.
Maybe Zuckerberg had a grander vision when he set out, but maybe, just maybe, he was a reckless 19 year old that wanted to create something better and wanted to prove his worth to his peers. Teenagers are always involved in the game of one-up manship and Facebook was Zuckerberg’s version of doing something more. Once Facebook started to soar skywards after the exclusivity was removed, Zuckerberg is left trying to explain what happened and how he achieved success. The credit Zuckerberg deserves most is in how he relied on others to build the network for him, and that he programmed the servers to be robust so they could scale effectively. As he mentions in the movie, if the site is down, the users of that site will start to debate about switching to a different site altogether.
The Social Network is definitely a compelling movie with some good moments in there for geeks and non-geeks alike. The first twenty minutes or so is pure geek. I thought maybe the majority of the audience was lost within the dialogue and the fast programming of PHP scripts and wget calls, but after the movie jumps those hurdles, it becomes more entertaining for everyone. It could certainly be a classic for my generation, but it could also become a relic of the past if something comes along and replaces Facebook in the future.
Buy or Rent The Social Network at Amazon.com
Oct 04, 2010 @ 17:18:32
I intend to see the movie, and I anticipate that my strongest reaction is going to be envy! Oh how I would have loved to be involved in something like this, whether or not it made much money. I can't imagine how satisfying it would have been to see the huge traffic – and how geeky cool it must have been to create it and see it come to life!
Oct 04, 2010 @ 21:23:42
I will probably wait for this one to go to video, as it's not very accurate as you point out. The writer admits he knows little about Facebook, which matches my impressions from watching the trailer. I'm all for a rags to riches business story but I'd like it to be more or less accurate! I do agree with you that we don't know all our motivations when we start something, and they may change over time.
Oct 04, 2010 @ 21:38:40
If the movie had been classified as fiction and did not focus around Facebook but developed a different company, the movie would work out well. The pacing of the movie is pretty good and it will capture your interest from the get go. There are problems with it other than how truthful it is about the facts, it's portrayal of women, for example. It's worth seeing but it is up to you decide whether to see it with a larger audience or not. I liked seeing it with the larger audience mainly to hear other people's reactions, but that's just me.
Oct 05, 2010 @ 17:05:54
It looks pretty interesting to me. I do want to see it. I do not like the idea that it is "sort of" true though. I understand streamlining and making a story simpler for screen. I am down with that. But if a movie is about real people and real events it should attempt to be as real as possible. If it is based on realty thinly veil the names. Make it "lookbook" and "Mark Zuckenburger". People will know that the story is Mostly about the character, but the flight changes give you the leeway to make it as fictional as you want.
Biopics that have large inconsistencies rankle me. But besides that, the film looks pretty darn cool.
Oct 06, 2010 @ 01:43:35
The question of the movie being true or not seems to only matter to people who have geeky tendencies (not sure how to phrase it). Apart from Sorkin (the writer) not knowing anything about Facebook, the dialogue in the movie makes it fairly entertaining. Perhaps not a movie people will want to see over and over again like most classics or good comedies, but certainly worth watching at least once.
Oct 07, 2010 @ 15:41:29
I'll probably end up seeing the move but not in theaters just because I don't like going to our local one's that often. Overall though, it's kind of novelty to have a major blockbuster created around a social network – I'm more into the full on geekiness of movies like these so I'm hoping there's a lot of, well, geek-speak haha. Idk, I expect it to be construed but that's how every Hollywood movie is these days; just going to see it and enjoy it for what it's worth.
Oct 10, 2010 @ 19:29:32
Hi James, this has not been on my list of films to watch, but I think I'm going to add it just for interest.
I think I read somewhere that the reason Mark Z created it was to meet girls!
Cheers, Matthew
Oct 11, 2010 @ 00:35:47
I'm not sure what the truth is behind why Facebook was developed, but I keep hearing about how Zuckerberg actually had a girlfriend at the time. I'm thinking he was a geek lashing out at the people around him, proving to them how he could create something big and popular.
Regardless of the truth found in the film, it is a decent movie to see and has several promising moments.
Thanks for stopping by Murray and Matthew.
Apr 23, 2011 @ 15:58:00
I’m pretty sure the ending of the ‘Social Network’ and all the loose ends that are tied up so neatly underscores the main message of this movie, amazing that Jarvis doesn’t come out and say it; the movie is called, “The Social Network” too boot: the movie suggests Zuckerberg created this website as a backdoor to get into the social scene. It’s quite an accusation, one that the real life Zuckerberg is quick to dismiss, bashfully, as if to say “oh, no, I met my girlfriend at a school party, not on Facebook. Facebook isn’t a place to get a social life, its a place to interact with the social circle you already have.”
The anti-hero ending of the Social Network is brilliantly bittersweet, the multi-billionaire computer geek douchebag, is suddenly a sympathetic, even pathetic figure: hitting the ‘refresh’ button on his laptop in winsome solitude. Money doesn’t buy happiness, and even fame won’t get your ex-girlfriend back. It would seem, there is no backdoor to a real social network, there is no shortcut to real friends, and you can’t buy them.
You can’t accuse Zuckerberg of doing it for money, because even he had no idea what FB would one day become. He was just thrilled to, for once, be part of a team, a part of a group of ambitious hackers, part of something exciting.