The socially awkward network

                                
                                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4

Above is a link to the trailer for the excellent new David Fincher film which officially opened here in the U.K last Friday.


Let me start by saying this...The Social network is an important movie for our times!  Facebook has become the number one tool used for social networking and is now the fastest way to get a message to a large number of people quickly and easily. The ramifications and uses of facebook are not worth going into here and im not going to get dragged into a debate about its privacy issues either but im sure we can all agree that its become massively relevant in our daily lives. agreed? good. My point is a film about the creation of facebook was entirely necessary. 


( FUN FACT KIDS! = did you know that if all the users on facebook had terra-firma it would be the worlds third most populous country!)


Although this is not primarily a film review blog, I see and love enough of them to have to talk about some of the time. The social network was one of them.


I for one was very excited about this film ( I tracked it for months and pushed the hell out of it) and just look at its credentials

• One of the great directors of the last twenty years , Mr Fincher
• Writer of the west-wing/studio 60 Alan Sorkin
• Trent Reznor doing the music-biz
• A talented ensemble cast
• Based on the book "the accidental billionaires" by Ben Mezrich who also wrote "bringing down the house" which was later optioned into the movie "21" ( another film involving too smart for their own good university students)

 Not gonna bore you with the plot details of the film ( that's for empire magazine and your friends to do) but i will say that I don't think its going to be the box-office darling the p.r peeps would like. That is in no way an insult to the film though, its just that with its less than conclusive ending and shades-of-grey characterization its difficult to see joe-cinema turning up in their droves. The film however though is very good, its subtle lighting struck me first as it seemingly draws you closer to each scene and sorkin's dialogue is delivered with machine gun like rhythm by Jessie eisenberg ( who plays f.book creator Mark Zuckerburg).

At near two hours its a long film but with enough time-frame switching and interesting characters to keep the viewer's attention span. At the core of the story is of course Zuckerburg himself, going into the film I was expecting to root for this nerdy but scarily smart young man but left not sure exactly how i felt about him and i love that! Flawed characters are always more interesting anyway. Look at Batman! Way more interesting than superman from a pychisois viewpoint. Who is Zuckerburg really? A fantastic genius of a  man who designed facebook as a way to join a elitest club when all others rejected him?. A man who was always going to be successful but lacking the soical graces to form something real? or a fantastic business man who knew exactly what he was doing when he ignored others, screwed over friends and partners in the business and who is desperate (even now) to protect his baby. I think the answer is probably a little of all three.


 Flip flopping between the modern day court case's (plural!) and the flashbacks of facebook's  Harvard university and Californian creation the film shows the pressure zuckerburg was under at the time. The film ends on a sweet but sad moment which I wont ruin but perhaps is the biggest clue as to what type of person Mark really is.


 On a side note I really do love that trailer and the music is a cover of radiohead's "Creep" of course performed by the Vega Choir. 


FUN FACT KIDS! = The site was originally called "The facebook" but it was Napster founder Shaun Parker ( played brilliantly by of all people Justin Timberlake) who encouraged the dropping of "the" to the snappier "Facebook".