I had heard a lot about the movie 'The Social Network' and was very interested in seeing it, since October 2010 when I first came out in theaters. So, I sat, with my juice and my popcorn on a rainy day waiting to be wowed. I mean, after so much hype I surely wouldn't be let down, would I? Hmm, I'll let you know.
The movie opens up with 'Mark' (played skillfully by Jesse Eisenberg) and his girlfriend at a bar and he is so 'not getting it' it's not even funny. I call my son socially awkward, I'm not sure what to call this. He seemed cold to his girlfriend, almost like he was doing her a favor by being with her and she ended it, right there. He was drunk. He was hurt. So what would any guy do? He went home and blogged about it on Wordpress. Then into his head, after talking with his friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) and getting an algorithm from him, decides to make a comparison site. A website that compared girls from different schools to each other. He called it FaceMash. It took off like wildfire and had so many hits that night it shut down the Harvard computer system. He ended up being put on 6 months academic probation for breaking into the Harvard system and the systems of other schools but that wasn't enough to stop him.
Some other guys in Harvard, named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) heard about what he had done and decided to pitch their idea of inner school website called 'Harvard Connection. He agreed but instead of doing it with the other guys he decided to take it in another direction and run with it. He gold Eduardo about a project he was going to create called 'thefacebook' but he needed some money to get it started. Eduardo was the money man after that first installment of $1000.
I'm not going to tell you the whole movie because you really should watch it for yourself.
Another great performance was given by Justin Timberlake as Shawn Parker, the founder and creator of Napster. He comes in and takes over the part of Mark's financial adviser, which makes Eduardo understandably 'mad as hell'.
This movie is based on 2 separate, but simultaneous law suits and did not have any input from Mark Zuckerberg himself.
How did I feel after watching the movie? Honestly? I felt a bit sorry for Mark. Here he was, with brilliant ideas and a brilliant mind to make billions of dollars with Facebook, but he can't talk to women, he doesn't understand 'normal' people nor does he try to. He did come off as a bit mean at times and even a bit clueless when it came to the feelings of others. And because he had a brilliant idea people immediately found a way to get their chunk of it, which he did end up having to pay.
The movie was very enlightening. I mean, I go on Facebook every day and don't think twice about it. I just go on and leave my status update, post my pictures, talk to friends and then move on to my next task. It was quite interesting to see how it all came about. From a night when Mark Zuckerberg was mad and drunk and felt scorned, now the rest of the world, over 500 million people around the world, have Facebook.
I highly recommend this movie. It's definitely worth the 3 Golden Globe awards it received at this year's ceremony, including 'Film of the Year'. Let's see what the Academy Awards bring it. I know I'll be cheering for it.
I was compensated for this review by Collective Bias but the opinions and review are my own.
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