Movie review: The Social Network

I finally got to watch The Social Network on Friday and I thought it was brilliant! It was engaging and intriguing from start to finish. The opening scene with the exchange between Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg and Rooney Mara's Erica pulled the viewers' attention right away. From then on, you wouldn't want to miss a single second or you would miss a lot.

Right from the opening scene, we have to pace ourselves to keep up with the dialogue. Zuckerberg, played impeccably by Eisenberg, was talking about three different things at once. The pace that he was talking at plus the jumping from subject to subject makes it almost impossible to completely understand him. His mind seems to be going a million different ways, and he can talk about a million different things at any moment in time.

From the opening scene we moved to Zuckerberg's dorm room, where he started Facemash and crashed the Harvard servers while drunk. The very same room where Facebook was born. We meet Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's best friend, CFO of Facebook, played by the next Spider-Man Andrew Garfield. Can I just say that he is so adorable?! Garfield also portrayed Saverin with perfection. As Zuckerberg's only friend, Saverin has to be the person who understands the way Zuckerberg thinks–or at least he tries. Saverin objected to Zuckerberg's affinity towards Sean Parker and felt betrayed by the deals made behind his back, pushing him out of Facebook, while trying his best to be supportive and understanding of Zuckerberg's behavior. You can't be anything but sympathize with the guy.

Then we have Armie Hammer, portraying both Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. The Winklevoss brothers, along with Max Minghella's Divya Narendra are the people who sued Zuckerberg for stealing their idea of a similar website. After coming to Zuckerberg with the idea and asked for his programming expertise, they were left behind in the dark while Zuckerberg and his friends created Facebook. The part I really loved with Hammer was when one of the twins said something about them having 3.9 GPA and rowing for the school, going to row at the Olympics for the US bringing the school's name, so that they deserve to meet the President of Harvard. I thought Hammer was exceptional, especially when playing two characters at once. These guys might be the closest to antagonists in this movie, even though, as everyone who worked on the movie had said, there are no clear protagonists/antagonists in this movie. But honestly though, they did not do anything wrong.

Then there's Sean Parker, played, perfectly of course, by Justin Timberlake. He was a-ma-zing! Parker was the founder of Napster, and Zuckerberg seemed very enthusiastic to meet the guy. After one meeting he was taken by Parker. He moved the Facebook development to Palo Alto where Parker lives, and hired interns to work in California. He let Parker steal Saverin's part and make business deals for Facebook. And Facebook was actually called "The Facebook" until Parker told them to drop the "The" – Parker's only contribution to Facebook, according to Saverin. Timberlake was impeccable as the fun, controlling unemployed "entrepreneur." From the movie, Parker seemed like the ladies-man, staying at a girl's place and moves on to the next's, until Zuckerberg let him stay at his Palo Alto Facebook house. Like Saverin, I am unsure of how much Parker brought to the table, but his "speech" at the initial meeting and the club might have been key to Zuckerberg's handling of Facebook, therefore crucial to its current success. Timberlake didn't show up until the second half of the movie, but made enough impression on all of us to get all that Oscar buzz, which I might say he deserved. His entrance in the movie, though, I just...love. Shirtless in bed. How I want to find Justin Timberlake. From the portrayed character in the movie, I wouldn't like Sean Parker; but Justin made hard for me to hate.

I loved the movie right from the start, up until the very end. Never thought that a conversation-driven Aaron Sorkin movie is my thing, but now I believe it is. The whole movie was mostly set in a college dorm room, law office conference room and a Palo Alto house. But the pace of the dialogue keeps it moving and alive. I've only been a fan of Sorkin since I watched Studio 60, but that added by this movie might make me watch his other works. I don't know much about screen writing or directing, but I have to say that Sorkin and David Fincher did one hell of a great job because I loved every second of the movie. Never a dull moment, full of suspense and excitement without any action sequences.

I have to say, being a Computer Science person I feel like I can really relate to this movie. From Zuckerberg's inability to handle social situations well and preferring the online world, to the want and need to invent something in the Internet, and all the excitement surrounding this virtual world that they created. I do love the scene where Zuckerberg was "auditioning" CS students by making them hack while taking shots.

Seeing these Harvard kids make me feel like I should do more, do something, be someone. That's exactly what I want to do, inventing something using lines of code – or at least be a part of something that matters. As the president said, students of Harvard believe in inventing jobs more than applying for them. I should create something that invent jobs.