“THE SOCIAL NETWORK”

A computer nerd and his girlfriend are sharing a table in a busy bar.  He has an opportunity to discuss just about anything with her — the way the evening has gone, past dates, future dates, sex.  But instead, after the conversation has swung around to their respective colleges — he goes to Harvard, she goes to Brown — he begins talking about… the collective IQ of the population of China.  Things get worse, she calls him an asshole, they break up, and he hightails it back to his dorm.

The nerd is Mark Zuckerberg, the kid who founded Facebook, and this is the first scene in the movie about

his billion dollar idea, “The Social Network”.

Aaron Sorkin’s script — talky, literate, and filled with one brash brainiac after another — might be one part boardroom drama (without the boardroom) and two parts character study, but it’s written like a good old-fashioned thriller.  The scenes that take place in the here-and-now are set in large meeting rooms dominated by long conference tables, where Zuckerberg has been forced to defend himself and his methods against two different lawsuits that have been launched against him: in one case, his former business partner (and, perhaps, only real friend) is suing him for essentially casting him aside; in the other, a couple of Harvard underclassmen are filing suit on the grounds that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them.  The rest of the story, told entirely in flashback, shows us how Facebook began, as one witness after another testifies for Zuckerberg or, more often, against him.

Zuckerberg is played with total commitment by Jesse Eisenberg.  With his mouth twisted into a kind of perma-frown and his eyebrows forever knitted together as though he can’t believe what his intellectual inferiors are doing to him, the kid speaks fast, and thinks faster — part of the problem is that his mind, which speeds along like a Formula One race car, can barely control what comes out of his mouth — and strings together words and concepts so willy-nilly, he might as well be communicating in a foreign language.  He never laughs; he hardly even smiles.  He is single-minded to a fault — it’s just one of his many flaws — and as Eisenberg plays him, you get the feeling that laughing, and having a good time, is not at the top of his list of priorities.

It’s a one-note performance, to be sure, but what a note it is, and Eisenberg (under the sure-handed direction of David Fincher) keeps playing it for all it’s worth.  Equally impressive are Andrew Garfield as Eduardo, Zuckerberg’s best friend from Harvard and Facebook’s CFO, and Justin Timberlake as Napster founder (and Facebook Johnny-come-lately) Sean Parker, who is every bit the ruthless, fast-talking SOB that Zuckerberg is, maybe worse. (It is when Zuckerberg meets with Parker at the latter’s invitation that he really starts to see the dollar signs.)  Just as Eisenberg’s performance grew on me, so did Garfield’s and Timberlake’s; Eisenberg proves to be a master at hiding his character’s feelings (you know that something is roiling beneath that mask his character wears, you just don’t know when any of it will — if ever — come bubbling to the surface), Timberlake is dirtier than a porn flick and twice as sleazy, and Garfield (as the “nice” guy in the group), wears the pain of betrayal, as well as his own innate decency and deep-down vulnerability, like a cloak.

Armie Hammer stands out, too, as the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (actor Josh Pence also had a hand in playing the twins; don’t ask — it’s complicated), the wealthy Harvard undergrads who eventually sic the family lawyer on Zuckerberg in an effort to pry away a chunk of his fortune.

The movie, though, belongs to Eisenberg.  In fact, so well does he play Zuckerberg the egotistical genius that I couldn’t help but root for him, now and then.  (Was it his fault that he was smarter than everyone else? What was he supposed to do — NOT make a grab for the brass ring?)

“The Social Network” works as biography, as drama, and as an up-close look at the wheelings and dealings behind a brand-new company that has gone on to earn billions of dollars.

It also ranks high — very high — on my list of the best movies of 2010.

FILM REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien