‘The Social Network’ Is a Psychological Boardroom Thriller

The big picture

• The Social Network
  is a thriller set in conference rooms during the creation and legal battles surrounding Facebook.
• The film does not offer social media commentary due to its early release, focusing on Zuckerberg's rise.
• Erica Albright's character exposes the dark side of social media through her interactions with Mark Zuckerberg.

Just last year, titles like BlackBerry, airi Flaming Hot chronicle of the creation of some of the most popular products to reach the market. However, there was once a time when this topic was a novelty. All that changed when The Social Network hit theaters in October 2010. Directed by David Fincher, The Social Network follows the creation of Facebook and the rise of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg. The Social Network It received eight Academy Award nominations, and won three.

Just as Facebook's legacy has evolved in the decade since The Social Network, so has David Fincher's film. Although the subject of the film was about the genesis of a social media platform, the film itself offers little or no commentary on social media as a whole. Instead, it works like a psychological thriller, where the intrigue takes place within the four walls of a boardroom rather than from a computer screen.

The framing of 'The Social Network' takes place in conference rooms

Armed with the script written by Aaron Sorkinapproached David Fincher The Social Network like his previous thrillers such as zodiac i Se7en. The Social Network traces the creation of Facebook through the context of two lawsuits. In a lawsuit, Mark Zuckerberg has been sued by Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) and the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, played by Armie Hammer; they're arguing over who came up with the original idea for the multi-billion dollar social media platform. At the same time, Zuckerberg is being sued by his former CFO and best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) after his ownership stake was diluted to 0.03%, effectively removing him from Facebook. Mark's story, and indeed Facebook's story, is told through flashbacks as they are being impeached by two different sets of lawyers.

The intrigue and thrust of the plot come from the quick-witted dialogue courtesy of Aaron Sorkin, which reaches new heights from the conference room walls. When asked by Gage (David Selby), one of the Winklevoss twins' lawyers, if he has Mark's undivided attention, Mark asserts his dominance by verbally tearing them down; he quickly berates them for wasting their time as his full attention returns to his company, where they are breaking ground in a way that no one else in this room is intellectually capable of. Scenes like this play out like a fantasy that highlights the peak of Mark's power.

However, it is also in these conference rooms that this is revealed Zuckerberg is the anti-hero of The Social Network. Throughout the film, it is unclear what happened between Eduardo and Mark to cause a fight that led to litigation. Even across the table, the audience gets a glimpse of their remaining friendship. However, through flashbacks, the audience sees the hints of jealousy that remained with Mark after Eduardo was accepted into The Phoenix's final club; Mark didn't even get an invitation. It all leads to the reveal that after Eduardo freezes the company's bank account, Mark retaliates by tricking his CFO into a bad business deal, kicking his best friend out of his company. One of the most memorable scenes in the film is Eduardo confronting Mark at Facebook's Palo Alto office just before Facebook hits one million users. The suspense between these two friends that culminates where success meets the destruction of a friendship is the mark of a great thriller.

At the time of the premiere of The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook were seen as a modern success storybeing compared to the likes of Steve Jobs i Bill Gates. Facebook was founded in Zuckerberg's bedroom while he was a student at Harvard University in 2004. The Accidental Billionaires for Ben Mezrichthe book it was adapted from The Social Networkwas released in 2009. To put that into context, Instagram had just launched when The Social Network hit theaters; meanwhile, Twitter wasn't even five years old; and MySpace had steadily declined in popularity.

There was a time when social media and its possibilities were optimistic. It was born with the idea of ​​connecting college students with each other, recreating the college experience online. The Social Network it didn't focus on social media comments because there wasn't enough to comment on. In the subsequent decade The Social Network, we've since seen how Facebook could affect politics, businesses, even our interpersonal relationships. Who knew that Mark's original lines of coding could create a divide that would cause many to question the validity of the election results. The social media dream has turned into a nightmare, however The Social Network I couldn't know at the time.

The few comments about the potential consequences of social media come from Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend, Erica Albright, played by Rooney Mara. His character is the first victim of social media, offering warning signs of how harmful social media can be. After Erica dumps him in the film's opening scene, Mark returns to her bedroom and begins insulting her on her blog; It's through his anger-fueled blogging that Mark gets the idea to create Facesmash, a website that rates Harvard girls based on attractiveness. While watching a montage of men participating, it's the women's reactions that illuminate the darker ramifications. The women who are shown responding to the site are not only upset, but surprised to see other women they know plastered on a site competing with each other based on hotness. i without your consent. Aaron Sorkin may not have known it yet when he wrote that scene, but he unconsciously laid out the ramifications when it got out of hand. We know from research that has been conducted over the past decade that women are more likely to be targeted on social media, with a higher percentage of these women being BIPOC.

That same night, Erica is bullied by classmates thanks to Mark insulting her bra size on his blog. Later in the film, Mark sees Erica having dinner with a group of her friends and tries to talk to her. Erica wants nothing to do with her ex-boyfriend after the way he spoke so cruelly about her. It's in this scene, which also happens to be her final screen scene in the film, that Erica hits Mark with a haunting reminder: The Internet is written in ink, not pencil. Every word, every thought that is shared on the social media of your choice cannot be easily erased once it is out into the world. Social media may come with the dissociation that comes with posting, but there will always be consequences for what you post on the internet.

If we were paying attention, the writing was on “The Wall” during the opening scene of The Social Network. In it, Mark and Erica meet in a bar in Boston and struggle to connect in conversation. Mark would go on to insult Erica's intelligence for attending Boston University, which he considers inferior to Harvard. Erica leaves him and tells him that he's going to go through life thinking that women hate him because he's a nerd when in reality he's just a jerk. According to the plot of the film, Facebook was born out of spite. Instead of delving into how this breakup would have affected the way social media might evolve, The Social Network is more interested in documenting the creation of Facebook through the lens of the litigation between Mark and his enemies. While effective as a thriller that ranks among the best in David Fincher's filmography, The Social Network it shouldn't be seen as a comment on social media because it wasn't interested in being a comment in the first place. Maybe if Fincher made a sequel, then he might say something meaningful about social media.

The Social Network is available to stream on Max in the US

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