November's Film of the Month: The Social Network
For the last three years, I've resisted pressure from friends, colleagues and employers to open a Facebook account. After watching this film, I feel vindicated - and a tad smug.
Director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (best known as the creator of 'The West Wing') present us with a version of history: how Facebook MIGHT have been founded; how the friendship between its creators MIGHT have fallen apart. This is cinema as entertainment, not docu-drama, with Sorkin making no secret about the lack of factual accuracy in his script.
But it's a brilliant script - and forms the core of an excellent movie. It's filled with Sorkin's trademark rapid-fire dialogue. In fact, the opening exchange between Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara is SO rapid-fire, you'll wish you were watching the film at home so you could switch on the subtitles! But this is not just two hours of pictures of people talking. Fincher takes great delight in bringing creative flushes to the proceedings, particularly during the Henley Regatta sequence.
The screenplay is brought to life by a group of outstanding actors: Eisenberg, as Mark Zuckerberg, the accidental billionaire at the centre of the story; Justin Timberlake, exuding arrogance and false charm as Napster founder Sean Parker; and Epsom's Andrew Garfield, playing the almost sympathetic Eduardo Saverin. I'm a big fan of Garfield - whose TV work includes the BAFTA-winning 'Boy A' and Channel 4's 'Red Riding Trilogy'. His star is definitely on the ascent, as his takes over the role of Spiderman from Tobey Maguire. One other actor worth singling out is Armie Hammer. With the help of digital effects, he plays BOTH Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss - the future Olympians who took legal action against Zuckerberg for "stealing" their idea of a social networking website for Harvard students.
David Fincher has created several masterpieces in the last two decades, including 'Se7en', 'Fight Club' and 'Zodiac'. This is not quite in the same category, but is still an example of superior film-making, deserving of your attention.
