The Social Network
The Social Network (M 121min) Directed by David Fincher. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake. It’s very possible to make a bad film with a good script, and sadly, it is also possible to make a profitable film from a very poor script.
But to make a good film, one that is still going to be worth watching in a decade, you have to have a really solid and well-structured piece of writing holding up the foundations.
The Social Network is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires, which is a partly fictionalised account of the founding of Facebook.
Using the book as a starting point, writer Aaron Sorkin, who is probably best known for A Few Good Men and TV’s The West Wing, has put together a crackling, twisting, and absolutely engrossing script based on not much more than a pack of deeply unappealing young men sitting around a table and arguing with each other. Genius.
The young men in question are Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. They play Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Sean Parker.
Zuckerberg has gone down in history as “the guy who invented Facebook”, while Saverin was the guy who got thoroughly stepped on during Zuckerberg’s ascent.
Sean Parker was the founder of Napster, and an early mentor to the founders.
There are others, of course. Zuckerberg’s journey from Harvard dorm to California billionairedom was pretty astonishing and, like the poster says, you don’t make 500 million friends without making a few enemies as well.
Director David Fincher (Zodiac) does what he needs to do to bring Sorkin’s great yarn to the screen. Fincher is famous for being an utter perfectionist on his set, and it shows here.
There is not a frame out of place in this film, and Fincher’s legendary patience, preparation, and attention to detail are everywhere to be seen.
The Social Network is an unlikely film. Writing this the day after I watched it, I still find it hard to believe that a film about callow youths with the social graces of feral cats, writing computer code, could have been so entertaining.
But The Social Network is what it is: a damned good drama about a pack of complete toss-pots.
And the quote I like so much from Sorkin?
He said: “I don’t have to know who my characters are. I just have to know what they want.”
If you’re bashing away at a screenplay, I reckon that’s worth thinking about.
