Director: David Fincher
What is there to say about The Social Network? It's a thoroughly entertaining film. It traffics in hoary tropes of class and the alienated genius. Everyone speaks in a Sorkin-esque staccato, firing out words as fast as they can be said, almost like they are typing them instead of saying them.
All of that sounds like I didn't much like the film, but I would give it 4 stars. Eisenberg is perfect as the stone-faced Mark Zuckerberg - he's completely unreadable. What does he want? What is he thinking? It's the question that guides the film - Sorkin and Fincher neatly edge us to the outside of Zuckerberg's inner circle by the end of the movie.
A downfall of the film is its reliance on a frame story and flashbacks as vehicles - while frame stories in and of themselves aren't bad, it does make the ending less tense. I suppose there's a difference when everyone going to the movie ostensibly knows part of the story - that Facebook is wildly successful. Still, the flashbacks and frame story rob the film of some narrative power, even if we do get Zuckerberg sniping at his adversaries and telling baldfaced lies to lawyers.
No comments:
Post a Comment