The Social Network

Posted by benjamin on October 17, 2010

The Social Network. The teaming of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin. Movie of the year? Well, I’ll get to that.

First things first, The Social Network was beautifully cast. From Eisenberg as Zuckerberg to Timberlake as Parker, I believed them all. Each brought something unique to the screen that made these real life characters even more…umm…real. I honestly thought that the real standout of the film would be from Eisenberg as he is a dead ringer, in my eyes, for Mark. However, the real shining light fell on Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker. The rock star quality that Timberlake brought to his role made the character come alive and easily pulled Zuckerberg along into forming Facebook into what it is today. Oscar worthy? I’m not so sure about that but let’s see what the rest of the year has to offer.

To say that the writing here was golden is just repetitive. It is Aaron Sorkin. You know. The same guy that brought you The West Wing, A Few Good Men, Sports Night, The American President, and of course, The West Wing. Its something about his fast paced, short dialog that just makes every sound smarter. Teaming Sorkin with Fincher takes the potential of this movie up a notch. Fincher is slowly growing on me even though at times I walk away from his films thinking they were good but not great. In The Social Network, Fincher seems to step back and let the writing excel as well as the performances of the young acting troupe that he has before him. I think it is also interesting that most of the shots of individuals are from the shoulders up. Was this designed to focus on the dialog or to mimic facebook style profile pics?

And since we have a great director and writer, let’s try to throw in someone who knows music to handle the soundtrack. Here we have Trent Reznor acting as the composer of the soundtrack instead of his typical writer, at least according to IMDb. The rock star quality of the sounds were definitely there but at times it was almost too much. I couldn’t decide if I was choosing to focus on it too much or if it was naturally too much.

Now, movie of the year? For me, not as much. It was a good film but nothing that blew me away or made me want to see it again and again. Many good parts that made up the film but many goods don’t make it great.

The Verdict:

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