A Surprising Film -- Spoilers.

The Social Network. A film about Facebook, or at least that's how word got around. The tagline "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" is so much more telling. Far from being a film "about Facebook" it explores friendships confronted with money, power and business.

This is just the first of a few hearings and court/legal cases we see him in. From here on the film appears as a set of statements from Mark himself, Eduardo Savrin (a friend of Mark's, played by Andrew Garfield), the Winklevoss twins (Cameron and Tyler, Harvard rowers who come to Mark with the idea of Harvard Connect -- or whatever it's called, played by Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (a friend of the Winklevoss' who also approaches Mark) acted out in the present tense. I, personally, think that it's a really smart way to tell a story. I was a smidge confused at first but as the plot developed, more statements told and new characters introduced the story became clear. 
The film, adapted (from "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich) by Andrew Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, follows Mark Zukerberg on his journey to create Facebook and the problems, and people, he encounters.

The main role of Mark Zukerberg, played wonderfully Jesse Eissenberg, goes through a rather tough breakup at the very beginning of the film. It is extremely hard to feel sorry for him, however, when he is being an inconscoentious, sarcastic computer nerd. It just gets worse when he goes home, gets drunk and writes posts on his LiveJournal slagging her off. Add this to the ridiculous "Facemash" he creates, comparing girls within Harvard to each other and you start to build a dislike for him instantly. The site gets 22 thousand hits after 4 am within 3 hours, it crashes the Harvard computer servers and lands him in a hearing. Congratulations Mark.




Mark has his moment of genius after a meeting with the afore mentioned Winklevoss twins and Mr Narendra. Their proposal sets it's roots in his brain and then flowers into "The Facebook" a place for Harvard students to add their other friends from Harvard. A pretty small, primitive version of the Facebook we know today. It was kind of fun watching Mark go plough through many hours of coding, adding things and having a little geek out at the fact that I knew some of the coding they were chatting about. 


From here Mark and Eduardo claim the fame while the Winklevoss crew become more enraged at their stolen idea. Eduardo gets a girlfriend who turns out to be a selfish fire wielding maniac bringing some comical parts to the film. Mark hires up his room mates to help him expand to other schools. 


This brings about the introduction of a new character: Sean Parker. Played by Justin Timberlake, the founder of Napster plays a big part in helping "The Facebook" become the worldwide Facebook we know today. He takes pleasure in telling Mark and a reluctant Eduardo and girlfriend about his many meetings and the paranoia brought about by money. A well played part sure, but a character I did not like him, nor did I want to. He was annoying, manipulative, and as I said paranoid. 


The story continues with Eduardo going to an intern-ship and to speak to advertising for Facebook. Over with Mark and he is rapped up with Sean and coding. Eduardo returns to find himself disconnected from the business. I felt sorry for Eduardo at this point. I wasn't sure whether I was meant to or not but I probably was, emotions aren't up to the decision of the audience in good blockbuster movies. He is swayed by the amount of work they've done or something, I tuned out over this bit, too many annoyingly, pretentious characters. It is a film about Harvard. Aaannnyyywwayy. I was snapped back to life by a bit of comedy in the form of the above mentioned crazy, silk scarf burning girlfriend. Definately feeling sorry for Eduardo now and I'm sure I'm meant too. Poor guy.


From here on we learn why Mark is in a court case against his "only friend". 


Mark and Sean have managed to get themselves a big office space with Facebook branding and logos everywhere.  I mean, wouldn't you? Eduardo is called in to settle some legal forms diluting or something. But he got less shares, let's put it that way. 


Later on we cut to the future, or present I'm not sure, in the legal dispute between Eduardo and Mark. After this, we return to the statements with Eduardo's voice over. He is called in to sign more forms and first thinks of them as "a joke". Uh oh. Less than a percent. He is not happy, infact he is raging. He storms through to Mark and smashes his Mac book. Now, smashing stuff is fun and all but I draw the line at Macs. They're too beautiful. Justin Timberlake plays his snide commenting, slimy, annoying character interjecting into Eduardo's shouting. By this point I wish that Eduardo had punched him. Disappointing stuff. He comes out with one of my favourite lines: "I like standing next to you, it makes me look strong". Yes! There is always one line in a film which I'll remember.


There's a very true speech back in the legal office by Eduardo directed at Mark. Something about being his "only friend". Looks like he screwed up there. From here Mark's sitting still in the office on a laptop and unsurprisingly on Facebook. He attempts to add the girl he screwed over (or that screwed over him) at the beginning. A few refreshes reveal no result and the camera pans around to see him continue clicking. Notes appear on the screen showing a relatively happy ending and the rest is inferred as they presume you use Facebook. 


The sound track that accompanies this film is strong, touching and used in exactly the right way. Come out on album please?


TL;DR: Overall the film covers so much more than just Facebook. I was surprised at how deep it was (not deep in terms of Schindler's List or The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas but definately deeper than Kick Ass, my favourite film this year). Relationships, money, crazy fire wielding girlfriends. Everything you need to make a decent film really. It was well adapted, well acted and well received. Go and watch it while it's still in cinemas. I'm just going to go buy that book.

I really think there's more to this than my actual English coursework. It also took a lot less time and there was a whole lot less stress. FAIL. Go watch the film.
Oh and none of the images are mine. Obvs.