Dem Reviews: The Social Network

Never been a big fan of Jesse Eisenberg. He’s always come off to me as the poor man’s Michael Cera, I guess. And I find it fitting that in the year that Cera was able to move a little off his usual movie persona with the awesome “Scott Pilgrim,” Eisenberg has almost leapfrogged him with this performance in David Fincher’s “The Social Network.”

Eisenberg’s performance in the film is something different than his previous acting gigs in “Adventureland” and “Zombieland” and, although not groundbreaking, it’s refreshing to see him go outside his norm. The acting in the film is overall pretty awesome, and it may be that most of the actors involved are still relatively under the radar, and that helped with the immersion (something tells me Andrew Garfield is going places, and not just because he was cast as Peter Parker, replacing Tobey Maguire in the reboot of the Spider-Man film series).

As far as direction, Fincher effectively tells the story, and there are a few sequences here and there — the intro credits sequence, the juxtaposition of Zuckerberg creating Facemash with the frat houses partying, and the Henley Regatta scene are stand-outs in my head — that really shined for me. The man sure is talented and he shows this in spectacular manner. Plus, Fincher’s decision to have Trent Reznor score his film was genius. Reznor’s score was brilliant and added a Dust Brothers-esque flavor to the film. Although some might find it out of place or overdramatic, I think it worked wonders within the context of the film.

Overall, the film had me from the beginning, and the story held me in place to the very end. Is it groundbreaking or something that will ever need to be viewed again? Probably not, but I do think that for this generation, we could very well be witnessing their “Wall Street,” as a sense of inspiration is what all computer nerds will leave the theater with after witnessing Zuckerberg’s story.  And, as a postscript, the “hacking” portions of the film screamed authenticity and although I could very well be wrong, it just made me chuckle even more when I think of movies that have unsuccessfully tried to portray this in the past.

I’m sure a lot of people may think a movie about Facebook is a little premature. After all, the company has only been around for a few years and, although they’ve made quite the impact, who knows what the social media company’s legacy will become. But after viewing the film, I can totally understand why David Fincher decided this movie needed to be made right now. It seems even more timely since, just this month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg moved up the Forbes Rich List with a net worth of $6.9 billion, passing Apple founder Steve Jobs.

With “The Social Network,” Fincher has created an interesting look into what could have (but probably didn’t) happened with the creation of Facebook, and he’s successfully put together an entertaining film that I believe is probably a little ahead of its time. I suggest you “like” this film.