Based on Brad Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network tells the story of how Mark Zuckerberg is dumped by his girl friend and he retaliates by creating Facebook. Yes, that’s a simplification, but essentially that’s the plot. But Aaron Sorkin’s canny script tells the story through the lens of two lawsuits brought against Zuckerberg: one by his former best friend and the other by the Winklevoss twins who claim Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social network web site. Jesse Eisenberg plays the near autistic Zuckerberg to automaton perfection. Justin Timberlake surprises with a startling performance as Sean Parker, evil Napster creator. Andrew Garfield, who will play Peter Parker in the next Spiderman movie, plays Zuckerberg’s best (and only) friend, Eduardo to sympathetic perfection. David Fincher turns what could have been a dull documentary into a thriller. GRADE: A-
I have zero interest in Facebook or anything relating to it, but Jackie wants to see it because of Aaron Sorkin.
I liked Eisenberg in ZOMBIELAND.
Jackie is right, Jeff. Aaron Sorkin’s script is amazing! How he manages to turn a bunch of kids huddled around a computer into a thriller is just magic.
Everyone seems to like this one.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK is smart and suspenseful, Patti. Most of the movies in the theaters now are kiddy-fare.
This looks like something I’ll want to get from Netflix when it becomes available, but I’m not interested in paying big screen prices. “evil Napster creator”? What’s evil about it, other then it ultimately caused sources to go the DRM route?
I don’t want to give much away, Rick, but trust me, Sean Parker of Napster is evil in this movie. And he ends up with 7% of FACEBOOK stock. That’s 7% of $25 billion.
ah, I thought the remark was about Napster itself, and I do know some people think file sharing is evil…
In the movie, Justin Timberlake’s Sean Parker has already shut down Napster because of lawsuits, Rick. Parker comes off as a schemer.