The Social Network

"You're not an a--hole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be one."--Rashida Jones in The Social Network

Three times in his career, David Fincher has made a movie that deserves to be in the year end discussion of the year's best. He reinvented the serial killer movie in 1995 with Se7en. He summed up the vacuous nature of consumerism with Fight Club in 1999. And he defined noble failure with Zodiac in 2007.

The Social Network may be better than all of the aforementioned.

In telling the story of a Harvard sophomore (Mark Zuckerberg) who invented Facebook, screwed his only friend, and paid out massive dollars in settlement fees to classmates that claimed he stole their idea, Fincher has not only made his best movie, but encapsulated a generation.

I have a friend who asked me "why would I want to see a movie about Facebook?"

Well, aside from the electrifying direction, the crackling dialogue of Aaron Sorkin (fans of The West Wing already know that Sorkin's characters don't speak like real people, they speak the way you wish that real people spoke), terrific supporting turns by Justin Timberlake (accessing his id entertainingly as Napster creator, Sean Parker), Andrew Garfield (as that only friend), and Armie Hammer (doing double duty as the Winkelvoss twins who sue Zuckerberg for theft of intellectual property), and an absolute genius performance by Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, I would suggest to you that The Social Network is only nominally about the creation of Facebook. What it's really about is the Model T Ford, the first guy to strike oil, to pan for gold, hell, the quest for fire even. It's about the final frontier. Well, at least until the next final frontier comes along.

In an era where space has been traveled, all existing land has someone's flag planted on it, and we have created enough nuclear bombs to destroy the world several times over, the internet is the last extraordinary creation. I mean really, what's left?

Now of course, Zuckerberg didn't create the internet, or even online social networking (My Space and Friendster got there first). What he has done is--to some degree--perfected it. We now live in an age where you can have hundreds, even thousands of friends whose faces you may never see (outside of their profile pic), voices you will never hear, and presence you will never touch. We do this in large part because of the invention of Facebook. Because of Mark Zuckerberg.

And who is Mark Zuckerberg? Well, if Fincher's film is to be believed (it's important to note that Zuckerberg did not cooperate with the filmmaker), he is socially inept to the point of needing a test for Aspberger's Syndrome. He is seemingly devoid of a sense of humor, blind to social cues, and insensitive to a major fault. In a way, all he is is what he's after. I realize I probably just described 90% of all geniuses.

What's fascinating, is that a guy with almost no social skills would create the largest social network on the face of the Earth. How imperfectly perfect. We now live in a great big virtual world where intimacy between friends is no longer a given, or perhaps it is merely redefined. Because of social networking, that six degrees of Kevin Bacon game is now pointless. We're all Kevin Bacon now. I don't blame Zuckerberg for this world, but I do have to live in it.

And live in it I do. Because of Facebook I have reconnected with pals from my past and struck up internet friendships with people of similar interests whose time zones I may never breach. I'm hardly alone. My mother can barely use a computer and she's on Facebook.

But I do wonder if something is lost and soon to be gone forever. Starting next month, I will manage my employees by remote by working on a lap top from home. Oh sure, I'll get in front of their faces from time to time, but no longer on a daily basis. While in many ways this may be a more efficient and less expensive way to work, it's fair to wonder what this will do to our ability to communicate, to connect with others in a meaningful way. Will we one day in the future never have to leave our homes? Will all films be downloaded to your computer and acted out by seamlessly animated characters? Will we ever need to walk into a bookstore ever again? Or open the doors of a school building? If not, can you imagine what it will be like going to a grocery store (at least until virtual food is created)? We'll probably have to take anxiety medication before we choose a cart.

And that is essentially what this movie is about. The ongoing sea change in how we relate to one another. This film pin points the day that our lives changed forever before we even knew it. Who wouldn't want to see a movie about that?

Like I said, this is the fourth time that Fincher has put himself in the position of possibly having made the best movie of the year. To put it another way: Move over Inception, you are in The Social Network's seat.

Sumo-Pop
October 2, 2010