Movie Review: The Social Network

LIKE! Ha!

It's pretty rare for a film to make such an impact on me. Yes, Toy Story 3 made me cry, while Inception raped my mind, but The Social Network appealed to me on a totally different way. Perhaps it's because of its relevance since, yes, I admit, Facebook is such a huge part of my life.

Quite frankly, when I initially heard about this project, I wondered what could a director as talented as David Fincher saw in a Facebook movie? I mean, this could have easily been a poor and lifeless retelling of how the biggest social networking site was founded, but I was pleasantly surprised to know that it was more than just the origins of Facebook. Seriously. It has got a lot more substance and endearing plot elements than I ever expected.

Now, aside from the actual premise, I was also a bit skeptical of the film's cast. But who knew this movie could actually extract such strong, and solid performances from everyone that could have missed the target easily? Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, to me, were the driving force behind this film. I thought Eisenberg gave a subtle yet authentic performance as the lead, making the character his own. Garfield, on the other hand, brought in an emotional aspect to the film. I was more than impressed with the emotional range he showed here.

Justin Timberlake, I thought, was a total scene stealer in this movie. And while I do admit that his performance wasn't as strong as the other two I mentioned earlier, I think that this was Justin's best acting performance to date. I also loved the performance of Armie Hammer who played both the Winklevoss twins with natural ease, which was no small feat considering he had to play off himself.

Which brings me to the main mastermind: David Fincher. Really. After his beautifully haunting The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was there any way he can top that? Maybe not, but he was able to maintain the high level of quality entertainment I've come to expect with his direction. He managed to make it consistently fast paced for the audience to keep captivated through and through. This wasn't his best work, but it's definitely in the same caliber as Benjamin Button, Se7en, and Fight Club. As for it's other technical merits,  I thought the script was written masterfully, the structure was brilliant and the musical scoring was really good.

Oh, and a quick word of praise for the special effects. In most of the scenes in which the Winklevoss twins appear, they were both played by Armie Hammer, and the inclusion of the actor twice in the same scene was absolutely flawless. Heck, I didn't even know that until I read something about it when I was looking for a movie poster of this film for this post. Haha.

Ultimately, this film is definitely one of the most timely, intelligent and engaging films to come along in a while. And despite a long runtime, the film, surprisingly, didn't drag. Clever narration. Excellent direction. Fantastic performances. Brilliant Script. What's there not to "Like"? Haha.