Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
The Social Network
The concept of The Social Network is simple. A girl breaks up with an extremely smart boy. The heartbroken boy seeks revenge on women and creates a website for rating the Harvard undergraduate girls. The website itself doesn't last for many reasons, but it spawns something else, a service now known as Facebook. First and foremost it is not a documentary but a fictional story only based on real events and real people. (The following includes spoilers, if that's even possible in this case.)
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Now I must say I really really enjoyed The Social Network. The dialogue is witty and interesting. The look of the movie is artsy but not too artsy and the pace is breathtaking. Nothing is dumbed down (too much) and overall the story is intelligent without being impossible to understand. Movie is full of metaphors, such as the scenes where the female diminishing FaceMash is spread through the campus and the simultaneous glimpses to the fraternity party boys treating women as livestock.
The casting rocks. Jesse Eisenberg is (not surprisingly) brilliant as Mark Zuckerberg. Andrew Garfield is sympathetic as Eduardo Saverin. Armie Hammer is simply great as Winklevoss twins. Joe Mazzello is cute and goofy as Dustin Moskovitz. Rashida Jones is warm and smart as Marylin Delpy. Rooney Mara is hot and cold as Erica Albright. Justin Timberlake is smooth and sort of sad as Sean Parker.
For me one of the most interesting was the character of Sean Parker. I had heard he is a total douche and a pretty cold type on the movie. I don't exactly agree with this. Yes, he talks too much and yes he does somewhat awful stuff and yes the girls get younger and younger. But mostly he is just flaky. I see him as an image of a certain stereotype of a nerd: Madly wanting to be someone else, yet under the cool surface and big talks being just a weak geek with allergies. (Somehow I find myself relating mostly to him. Please, don't ask nor judge.) As Saverin points out he doesn't really bring in anything, besides of the idea of dropping out the The from the name of TheFacebook. Though he's the one who brings in the big money and pretty much turns Facebook into a real business. Timberlake's abilities as an actor came to me as a surprise. I haven't been much of his fan so far, but now I have found new respect for him.
Jesse Eisenberg is fantastic as I predicted he would be. His Zuckerberg is said to be calculative and even harsh, but again I disagree. The character of Zuckerberg wants desperately to be respected and does something stupid because of that. He is above everyone else because of his incredible mind, but at the same time he's rather lost. Eisenberg nails it.
Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin almost steals the show. He is smart and dumb. It's hard to see him getting screwed and sad to see him in a way deserve it. He is scared and reluctant to take risks and ends up suing his former best friend. All the way down Garfield is convincing.
The story starts with the break-up but is viewed as flashbacks during two lawsuits. All is seen through the eyes of an outsider. The deeper motives of the characters are left mostly not explained. As a matter of fact the movie doesn't really explain anything too much. The events are clearly shown as interpretation of hearsay and it's colored only by the conclusions of the observing outsider.
The observing outsider (basically the movie viewers through the perspective created by the camera views and editing) is incarnated as the character of Marylin Delpy. She's been sent to listen and learn from the lawsuits Zuckerberg is facing. She makes some comments in time to time, but mostly she does as she's told to: Just listens and learns.
As said earlier, The Social Network is not a documentary and since I knew this I didn't even try and see it as one. It's a fine example of movie art and entertainment, and it can be seen as a metaphor of the business and entrepreneurship these days. Note that I'm saying the following with deep love and empathy: The movie also paints a quite apt picture of many faces of a nerd. Yeah, he is hard to get and in times pretty annoying, but so damn brilliant and usually incredibly likable.
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