You may ask yourself “why would I want to see a Facebook movie?” The answer is that it's so much more than a movie about Facebook. Is it an accurate depiction of the founding of Facebook? Undoubtedly not. Does it matter? Absolutely not. The film is like a perfect storm of great parts coming together.
First, there's the script written by Aaron Sorkin. In actuality, the script may be the star of the film. Not only does Sorkin cleverly use depositions from two lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg as a framing device to tell the story, but the dialogue is superb as well. Using the depositions gives a frame of reference for us, and suggests that what we're seeing isn't necessarily what actually happened, as they point out several times. It also gives the events a more personal feeling as we can see how actions affected them, how the characters view them, and what they think of each other. It adds drama that otherwise wouldn't exist. He makes it a very compelling story of ambition, friendship and betrayal.
Mark Zuckerberg is driven to stand out and be exceptional, perfectly set up in the opening scene. He's not great at coming up with ideas, but he has the ability to improve other peoples' ideas and make them great, wonderfully displayed in the following scene. And that creates the problem – if someone has a very basic idea, but someone else is able to fill it out, make it better and make something different and their own out of it, who has the right to it? And with Mark's social awkwardness and ambition, he doesn't understand how to do deal with his friends and their business. And as their business grows, so too do the tensions as they want to take the business different directions.
Then there's David Fincher's direction. I think the most astounding thing is that he was able to get a 160 page script into two hours. The general rule of thumb is that pages equals minutes – a 120 minute movie script should be around 120 pages. But Fincher pushed the actors to spit out the dialogue as fast as they could (the opening scene took 99 takes, and Fincher throughout filming told the actors “Faster!”). But nothing feels rushed. You never feel as though you're being bombarded with information. It's all shown to us very well, you don't miss anything.
Jesse Eisenberg is fantastic as Mark Zuckerberg. He speaks the dialogue so well, it sounds natural (when, in fact, no one talks like that). He also plays Zuckerberg with sincerity – he honestly does not see what the problems that people have with him are. He believes that he's done what is right and proper. He doesn't just play him as someone who is petty and looking to screw people over. And the character could easily come off that way. It keeps the character very human and strangely sympathetic.
I also quite enjoyed Jeff Cronenweth's cinematography. Like he did with Fincher's Fight Club, he largely uses natural light. He lets the location bathe the scene in unusual colors, making very striking and beautiful images. I thought the electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross worked very well.
There is no doubt that this is an early favorite for some Oscar considerations. They'll be well deserved. It's an extremely well-crafted, put together, interesting, funny movie. There's quite a lot of humor here to break up the dramatic tension. And it's interesting to watch the relationships between the characters change and evolve as the story moves along, especially when you know where they end up – finding out how they get there is the fun and intriguing thing. There's so much more to this than just being about Facebook. And with a great script, great direction, and a great performance, how can you go wrong?
5 out of 5
