Why THE SOCIAL NETWORK Is the Best Film of Its Generation

 

Photo Credit: No Film School 

It opens eerily. Right from the jump, there is something noticeably unsettling about David Fincher's masterpiece, The Social Network. 

PART I: A Chilling Opening

Sure, it starts in the middle of a now-famous breakup scene showcasing the talents and intelligence of both Jesse Eisenberg (playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) and Rooney Mara (playing his soon-to-be ex, Erica Albright), but I'm not even talking about that scene. I'm talking about the aftermath of that scene. 

Post-breakup, Mark rushes home to his dorm room with bottled anger and frustration. The Harvard campus is dark. The score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is chilling and ominous. But isn't this a rags-to-riches story about one of the most meteoric rises in the history of big business? Why the gloom and doom? What, exactly, is going on here? 

And that's where The Social Network grabbed me, right from the get-go. I had to know what was lurking in the background. This is the best film setup of Fincher's storied career. 

From there, the key is the structure of the film - or lack thereof, perhaps? As I noted @FrascellaMovies on Twitter, The Social Network is a Fincher film that feels like a Scorsese flick. The latter is one of the greatest of all time for many reasons, and one of the top reasons is that he simply refuses to rely upon plot. Scorsese films are quite often character-driven, and I think that's the key to realism, intrigue and audience investment. I often say and write that Scorsese's best movies are littered by short films within the film. Just think of the "funny how?" scene in Goodfellas - it could exist entirely on its own. It has rich characters, entertaining storytelling, build-up, suspense and humor. This is an important comparison because Fincher achieves such glory a number of different times in The Social Network. 

PART II: The Best Scenes in the Best Movie 

Let me take a long moment to list the incredible scenes that succeed entirely on their own in Social, in no particular order: 

1. When, in the climax of a back-and-forth scene, Zuckerberg zings the Winklevi's lawyer by viciously asking if he has adequately answered his condescending question. 

2. When the Winklevi protest Zuckerberg's intellectual property theft in president Larry Summer's office at Harvard. 

3. When Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, at his career best by a landslide) makes his introduction to the audience. This is also our one-and-only interaction with young Dakota Johnson (playing Amelia "Amy" Ritter), who drops one of the best lines in the movie, "Well then, what was your latest preneur?" Johnson has since become one of my absolute favorite actresses, getting laughs in The Five-Year Engagement, elevating complete crap in The Fifty Shades trilogy and carrying one of the best rom-coms of its generation, How to Be Single. 

4. When Sean Parker takes Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, a revelation), his girlfriend Christy (a sexy Brenda Song) and Zuckerberg out to a fancy "business" dinner. The captivating "Sean Parker Variety Hour" ensues. 

5. When the Winklevi realize Mark might be stealing their idea, they have a very interesting three-way pow-wow with their business partner, Divya Narendra (a sneaky good Max Minghella). 

6. When the Winklevi lose their crew race by a hair. The score choices from Reznor and Ross are as good as I've ever heard. 

7. When Eduardo warns Mark that he's "coming back for everything." Fincher is absolutely locked in in this scene. From the moment Eduardo bursts through the conference room doors, we are hooked.  

8. When Sean Parker tells Mark about Roy Raymond and the ascension of Victoria's Secret. What a parable, with electric atmosphere from Fincher. 

9. When Eduardo realizes Sean has weaseled his way in and now has entrepreneurial control over Mark.  

10. When Mark and Eduardo have their final fight before the double-cross. Mark may have already set the wheels in motion toward Eduardo's demise, but this argument absolutely seals his fate.

11. The Citizen Kane ending. Yes, Mark has become the youngest billionaire in the world. Yes, Facebook appears to be on its way to even bigger and better things. But, Mark Zuckerberg is all alone in that conference room. He friend requests his ex Erica, then slouches there quietly, refreshing the page. 

Now sit back and take a look at this compilation, here. Eleven truly great scenes in one, single film? Seriously... eleven?? 

Randomly, I was just having a conversation with someone about the film The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson - and I could only think of TWO good scenes in a movie that was 2 hours and 12 minutes long. And here's the kicker... the movie wasn't even that bad! 

So imagine successfully stuffing 11 incredible scenes into The Social Network. It's a seemingly impossible feat, but Fincher finds magical ways to get it done. 

PART III: Everyone is at the Height of their Powers 

We’re already hundreds of words in, and I haven’t even mentioned Aaron Sorkin yet. Sorkin is arguably the best – and certainly the most famous – screenwriter of his generation. I’m sure you know him from A Few Good Men, The West Wing and perhaps even To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway.

But like anybody else, there are two versions of Sorkin: Quite simply the “good” and the “bad”. “Good Sorkin” makes all of his character interactions interesting with a wide-ranging vocabulary and well-timed quips and zingers. “Bad Sorkin” knows exactly how he is perceived, then overdoes things. (See Molly’s Game, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and sometimes The Newsroom for examples of “Bad Sorkin”.)

Here in The Social Network, Sorkin scribes everything just right. It’s not too rushed – sometimes the case in Steve Jobs, which I love anyway – and it’s never too slow. Like the title of this section indicates, Mr. Sorkin is at the height of his powers here.

In terms of the actors and actresses, well, just look around! This is far and away the best performance of Armie Hammer’s trainwreck of a career. The same can also be said of Justin Timberlake. In smaller roles, these are all among the career best for Max Minghella, Dakota Johnson, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, John Getz, David Selby and Douglas Urbanski. Only Joseph Mazzello (as Dustin Moskovitz) and Rashida Jones (as Marylin Delpy) sometimes seem overmatched and out of place.

And let’s talk about the big dogs, here: Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. This role is so central to Eisenberg’s career that I often think of him as Mark Zuckerberg in reality, and vice-versa. Would you buy stock in the former’s career now, though? Things were looking promising early for Eisenberg with The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, Zombieland, The Social Network and The End of the Tour (another of my personal favorites), but far less so with Wild Indian, Resistance, The Art of Self-Defense and The Hummingbird Project in recent years. The Social Network remains – very clearly – his career highlight.

And how about Garfield? Well, the 39-year-old – who looks to be about 29 – is certainly considered a “serious thespian” at this stage in his career. But I hardly think Breathe, Under the Silver Lake, Mainstream and The Eyes of Tammy Faye are striking the zeitgeist the way The Social Network and his sympathetic portrayal of Eduardo Saverin did. When Mark pulls the rug out from underneath Eduardo’s feet, Garfield is the one who makes us really feel for him. He successfully makes us feel for a guy with a net worth of $6.41 billion dollars. That’s how good Garfield is in Social.

In my Top 10 Movies of the 2010s piece, I referred to the making of The Social Network as a “perfect storm”. And it really was, wasn’t it? Fincher, one of the greatest directors of his generation, locked-in and laser-focused in every possible way. Sorkin, one of the greatest screenwriters of his generation, note-perfect and never overextending himself. Reznor, best known for his days as the lead singer of Nine Inch Nails, doing the best musical work of his movie career.

Eisenberg. Garfield. Hammer. Timberlake… you get the idea. When I think about The Social Network, I think about those interviews with actors when they say, "You just don't get to be on a set like this. This is the type of filmmaking experience we really have to savor." 

PART IV: Historical Significance 

It feels weird to write "historical" when we're talking about a movie that came out around 2010. Nevertheless, The Social Network was the precursor to so many important developments in film, television and Silicon Valley tech. 

Yes, Silicon Valley was a thing long before Zuckerberg and Facebook - it goes way back to Hewlett-Packard in 1939, then really ramps up with Xerox, Atari and Apple in the 70s - but I firmly believe that The Social Network made Silicon Valley cool. Like Sean Parker said in the film, "The Facebook is cool, that's what it's got going for it... this is no time to take your chips down. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars. And that's where you're headed - a billion dollar valuation." 

Following The Social Network in 2010, here's a list of movies and shows I believe were inspired by the success and coolness of Fincher and Sorkin's fantastic film: 

1. Jobs (2013): A pretty terrible Ashton Kutcher movie. 

2. Silicon Valley (2014): A successful TV comedy on HBO. 

3. Atari: Game Over (2014): A documentary about the rise and fall of Atari. 

4. Steve Jobs (2015): Another great Sorkin screenplay, probably propelled by Social's success. 

5. General Magic (2018): A documentary about a failed Silicon Valley company - a lot of overlap with the "cast of characters" from Steve Jobs. 

6. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019): Scary documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. 

7. The Dropout (2022): Theranos and Holmes, again. This time Amanda Seyfried is winning awards for her portrayal of Holmes. 

8. WeCrashed (2022): Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway taking us through WeWork's dramatic demise. 

9. Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber (2022): Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Joseph Gordon-Levitt guiding us through the mercurial rise of Uber. 

And I'm sure there are plenty more, but those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. 

In the end, The Social Network is as close to perfect as a film can possibly get. It truly has it all - world-class directing, all-time screenwriting, masterclass acting, superb pacing, intense conflict and reverberating historical significance. To me, it's the best film of its generation. 

John Frascella is a published author and 2nd generation film critic. Follow him on Twitter @FrascellaMovies for all things film, TV and entertainment.