Social Network

Year: 2010

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Fincher

Review

features an excellent trailer with radiohead’s creep as done by scala and kolacny brothers, a belgian girls’ choir. it’s about as good as the original, which is a classic. the song fits the film’s theme and the trailer perfectly and deepens the sadness of the original version, if such a thing is possible. of course, radiohead’s version has withstood the test of time and they wrote it so it’s still the superior version, but not by much.

the movie itself isn’t as good as the trailer, but it’s a solid effort from a talented group. eisenberg has his best performance to date, fincher turns in another solid flick and sorkin stays relevant. trent reznor even gets in on the party and does the score. it’s a good story and i like films that tackle recent history. it’s a difficult thing in a way, but it’s much easier for the audience to draw their own conclusions and have a more interactive experience with the film. i don’t use facebook, but it’s a much better topic of historical fiction than, say, the inferior coppola’s “marie antoinette.”

the story is a contradiction on a few levels – it’s a story about the most successful social network in the history of the world which was created by a young man who evidently couldn’t make or keep his own friends. a big thesis in the early days of facebook was the idea of exclusivity, but of course now it’s the most popular group in the online world and is therefore not all that exclusive.

it’s a rich and layered story with plenty of compelling characters and it’s well-executed. it’s not the film of the year and it’s certainly not fincher’s best, but it’ll make my top ten. B+.

Watched in theater