The Social Network

Just came back from a screening of The Social Network, and was pleasantly surprised that is was really good.  The dialogue and acting was good, borderline great.

The film opens in a bar with Zuckerberg and what appears to be his girlfriend, but that ends quickly as soon as he starts talking more and becomes more of an ass to her, and we see them break up right there. Mark Zuckerberg is made to appear to be a ruthless ass, but in my opinion in this portrayal he is a rather sad character. He lacks many social skills, and has borderline asperger syndrome, he is a genius but he has absolutely no social skills.  He is often seen as being defensive and abusive to his friends.  The movie makes him seem like he would stab his mother in the back to get ahead, but it also shows just how lonely this man really is.  Eisenberg does a wonderful job of the portrayal of the character, he delivers his lines perfectly and somehow fits the nerd stereotype perfectly (who would have guessed that).

The movie does a great job of showing just how important it is to be first to market, you can take an idea and make it better and everyone wants a piece of the pie.  Justin Timberlake does a good job portraying Sean Parker, a character everyone can truly hate.  Sean seems to be  a waste of human space and is lucky to live off the coat tails of others.  He is that loser that everyone knows, you feel sorry for, but still hate him.  He did one good thing and he'll never let you forget it, and he leads a path of destruction without knowing it.  He is paranoid, scared, wants to be the center of attention at all times, and is just truly pathetic.

And Finally the last main character Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, is Mark's only real friend, and is truly screwed by Facebook.  Eduardo gave the seed money to start the company, and tried to get capital but did not have enough connections.  This is where Zuckerberg as it appears in the movie decides to go for money and screw his friendship. Eisenberg does seem upset by the fact he screwed over his friend and the movie almost makes it seem like he had no choice in the option.  This came after facebook got a large investment from a company and the shares needed to be diluted.  It was known from day one that Eduardo would be the one getting screwed, but he signed the papers thinking that he is working with his friend, and was he so ever wrong.  He does now own about 5% of the company worth about $1.1 billion (I know so sad) but was betrayed by his friend in the process.  The dialog in the movie during the various mediations from the two concurrent lawsuits is truly priceless and needs to be witnessed.

The film ends with Zuckerberg hearing he needs to settle the suits because no one can like him with a jury, and he does the one thing that all of us have done before, checking on his ex on facebook.  This little mistake that we have all caught ourselves doing that is not good for anyone, but he takes it a step further and requests to be friends.  We've all been there and just a piece of advice if something has truly messed you up, and you no longer talk, don't do it.  Don't cause yourself more pain by opening up old wounds, learn from your past experiences and move on, try not looking back too much.

But I thought it was a great film that you should go see, I did see it for free, but I would have gladly paid to see the movie.  Yes actually want to pay to see a movie means that it is good, and you should check it out.