You’re going to be successful and rich. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a tech geek. I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”
And that is probably one of the calmest and greatest break up lines ever uttered in a movie in the past decade. This takes place during the opening sequence of The Social Network which most people refer to as ‘The Facebook Movie.’
And that is probably one of the calmest and greatest break up lines ever uttered in a movie in the past decade. This takes place during the opening sequence of The Social Network which most people refer to as ‘The Facebook Movie.’
Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg played by Jessie Eisenberg (watch Zombieland and The Squid And The Whale) whose face and name you will never forget after watching The Social Network, is just about to get dumped by his girlfriend Erica. He is driving her crazy, talking about a million topics at a time, never listening to her viewpoints and worse avoiding all eye contact! They are intellectually well matched and she is by no means left behind when they discuss Tibetan philosophy or financial stocks. But she is fed up with his condescending attitude and obsession about getting into Harvard’s elite clubs. To outsiders, Mark’s social inaptness could seem a little worrying and some films critics have even compared him to an asperser syndrome like character.
Worn down by this relationship, Erica leaves Mark seated at The Thirsty Scholar Pub after telling him: “Being with you is like dating a Stairmaster.” Ironically, Erica’s words will have a prophetic meaning with Mark becoming the youngest billionaire in the world thanks to the creation of Facebook. However, despite conceptualizing one of the most revolutionary social networking tools in history, he will as the film portrays, carefully destroy every possible close relationship he could have potentially had with a human being. The last scene is of him hesitantly sending a “friends request” on Facebook to Erica and refreshing the page, waiting for her to answer sadly shows that even geniuses with minimal social skills need, maybe not all the time but to a certain degree, the presence of other living beings in their lives and not just laptops!
To get back to Erica after she leaves him, Mark takes his revenge on his blog and sets up a popularity contest called “Face Smash” among the female students of Harvard which gets 22,000 hits in two hours and causes the entire computer system of Harvard to crash.
Based on Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires and written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin, this incredibly well crafted script and outstandingly shot film by director David Fincher ( Seven, Zodiac and the upcoming US version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) revolves around two court cases filed against Mark Zuckerberg. This is precisely why The Social Network can be watched by just about anyone, even by those rare cases who do not have a Facebook account! The film does not require vast knowledge about hacking or computer programming; it could even be more like a court room drama. The Winklevosses twins who are on the Harvard rowing team, future Olympians and as Mark says, “ not used to seeing things not going their way”; and their partner Divya Narendra, are suing Zuckerberg for breaking his agreement to write a software code for the future HavardConnection.com, and for allegedly stealing their idea and transforming it into the hugely successful Facebook.
The second case which is more upsetting has been filed by Eduardo Saverin, Mark’s once best friend, the one who not only came up with the initial algorithm used to rank chess players for “Face Smash”, but also put in the initial 1000 dollars and a business plan to start Facebook. Eduardo’s decision to sue Mark comes up after he discovers that he signed a deal with Zuckerberg and the other main shareholders, allowing them to dilute his share of the company from thirty-four percent to three hundredths of a percent, while the ownership percentage of all other parties remained the same!
The reason for this is unclear. Was Zuckerberg jealous of Eduardo getting into one of the elite Harvard Clubs? Was it a way of punishing him for not having a clear grasp of what Facebook is? This is shown in one sequence of the film when Eduardo’s angry girlfriend accuses him of not even knowing how to change his status on his Facebook profile. The reasons for the betrayal are not spelt out but the result is the same: the end of a long friendship. The other key character behind Facebook is Napster creator Sean Parker who is portrayed by Justin Timberlake. Parker fascinates the young Zuckerberg injects in him the idea that Facebook can be not a million-dollar company but a billion-dollar one. The other very interesting aspect of The Social Network is that morality issues are left to be sorted by the viewer. There is no clear answer given as to whether Mark has stolen the Winklevosses idea or if he betrayed his best friend. However social networking sites existed before Facebook which can claim to be the largest but not the only one. The film never disputes the fact that Mark is pure genius, he can text message while answering questions from his professors or shut to silence an opposing lawyer. The Social Network does not offer truths but a million possibilities and some liberty to let your imagination wander. An intelligent movie, it was time!
Courtesy - The Sunday Leader By Sumaya Samarasinghe
