'The Social Network:' Facebook film captures digital age

It’s rare for anything to become as universal as Facebook is today. It’s difficult to imagine meeting someone and not “Facebook-ing” them. Perhaps the reason for Facebook’s success, as one of the characters of the new biopic “The Social Network” puts it, is that the website “transports the social culture of college and puts it online.” The film, which opens Friday, has been explained by its director David Fincher as no less than “The Citizen Kane of John Hughes movies.”

Fincher is right: John Hughes tackled high school, a stage of life everyone can relate to, and a stage now embodied by Facebook. As for the comparison to “Citizen Kane,” “The Social Network” similarly deals with the meteoric rise of one individual, in this case Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg. The film portrays the friendships Zuckerberg made and destroyed in order to be successful. Even though he is the creator of the largest social networking site in the world, Zuckerberg can’t make up for the fact that he isn’t able to connect with people offline. It’s truly a movie that defines the Facebook generation.

The feature of “The Social Network” that immediately distinguishes it from “Kane” or any Hughes movie, though, is that it’s technically brilliant. Fincher has a distinct visual style that jives smoothly with the story he’s telling. Most of the special effects are subtle (the Winklevoss twins are actually played by one actor), but there are several sequences in the movie unlike anything that has been done before. It’s by no means as overtly sophisticated as “Inception,” but the unique way the movie is filmed acts as its own story telling mechanism, which highlights the minute emotional changes of the characters.

The film’s writer Aaron Sorkin, of “The West Wing” fame, deserves special praise. “The Social Network” hits the ground running, with Zuckerberg and his girlfriend mid-conversation, and by the end of the scene the audience already intimately understands Zuckerberg—his motivations and why he feels obligated to create Facebook. Words are weapons and are thrown like daggers throughout the film. Sorkin’s dialogue has previously been compared to music—well timed, rhythmic, and with unstoppable momentum. It’s also terribly funny, with hundreds of one-liners sure to fill the “quotes” section of countless Facebook pages. Most importantly, and most impressively, the middle-aged Sorkin obviously understands the nature of Facebook. There are even two scenes in which a character in the movie uses Facebook on-screen. It’s painfully relatable and brilliant.

“The Social Network” is quite possibly the best movie of 2010. While “Inception” knocks viewers over the heads with the potential of an idea, “The Social Network” puts a genius idea on relatable terms by telling a story—not a history—of ambition and betrayal both online and off.