Review: The Social Network

This post is a bit late, since I saw The Social Network last Friday (22.10.2010).

The Social Network (2010)

Directed by David Fincher

Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella and Rashida Jones

The story is about Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) who is a student in Harvard. He invents Facebook along with best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), but complications arise on who's idea Facebook actually is. That is the story shortly put, but it includes much more than the actual invention of Facebook.

Although The Social Network is a modern film, the themes are classical; friendship, ambition, money and betrayal.

Aaron Sorkin's sceenplay is very impressive; it's witty, funny, fast paced and yet never has anything in excess. Same can be said about David Fincher's direction (this film is actually one of my favourite films made by David Fincher). It's quite hard to believe how good the movie actually is, considering that the source material can be kind of bleak; watching a person on a computer creating a website.

Jesse Eisenberg's acting is subtle, yet extremely effective. He completely steals the movie. Andrew Garfield shows a range of emotions perfectly as the partner who is betrayed by his best friend. Justin Timberlake's performance is quite suprising, becuase I thought it would be, well, not good. In fact, he is great. It seems that he does have a future in acting if he continues to pursue it.

In my opinion the movie is extremely well made; the direction, screenplay, cinematography, acting, editing... Everything is top-notch. I wouldn't be suprised to see the film nominated (or possibly even winning) in most of the categories in this year's Oscars.

5/5