Kendra Samuel
Journal Contributor
“The least they could have done is waited until I died.” Mark Zuckerberg said after hearing the news of a movie based on his life. The tagline states, “You don’t get 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” Clearly, Zuckerberg was one of the few casualties.
Directed by David Fincher, “The Social Network” (2010, Columbia Pictures) follows Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) through the trials and tribulations of being too smart for his own good, which in the end landed him some big bucks and even bigger problems. The Facebook creator had been accused of stealing the idea from business partners, instantly earning him two different lawsuits from two different angles, and through the film, audiences finally get the whole story.
Luckily, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (West Wing, Sports Night) wasn’t too concerned with making Zuckerberg out to be the victim in his film adaptation of the true story. From the first scene, viewers get a sense of Zuckerberg’s character and any sympathy they may have had for the entrepreneur vanishes. Drenched with sarcasm coupled with an air of superiority, Zuckerberg’s character drops witty one-liners packed with punches throughout the entire film. This paints the image of a highly intelligent, lonely guy who will always understand everything, except for everyone else. Consumed with the mentality that he can always do something better than someone else, Zuckerberg takes an idea from his colleagues, and instead of letting them in on his plan, he reinvents their concept with his own flair and improvements without their knowledge, thus “the Facebook” was born.
However, this was anything but an overnight task. Viewers get to see exactly why things were added and what their intention was within the application. Every element came from bouncing ideas off of those around him. This very fact was quickly buried away beneath the success that the program began to generate, and eventually was lost completely, as was the initial purpose behind creating such an addicting site.
And this is what the film is truly about. As Sorkin stated during the Q&A session held after the film, “I didn’t write a movie about Facebook.” He and the actors involved agree that it was more about the process of capturing the idea and the look into Zuckerberg’s personal life that made this film so great.
Though many involved with the film didn’t, and still don’t, have Facebook profile pages, a few brave souls, including Sorkin himself, have decided to take a dive into the hype and see just what all the commotion was about. “Strictly for research purposes,” Sorkin had added with a smile.
Moviegoers will be able to witness Sorkin and Fincher’s hard work in wide release on October 1.
