Aeration - Carolina Weekly Newspapers

‘The Social Network’
by Ryan Hill
movies@huntersvilleherald.com
The creation of Facebook is arguably
one of the most defining events of the
past decade. So, naturally, they made a
movie about it. What began as a social
site for college students exploded into an
everyday tool for almost anyone with a
computer and has redefined how people
interact with each other in the 21st century.
And “The Social Network” may very
well be the defining movie of this period
in time, especially for Generation Y. From
its whiplash ADD-style dialogue that anyone
over the age of 40 may have a hard
time keeping up with to its ideas about
kids who want to, as the film puts it, create
their own job, “The Social Network”
crawls into the minds of these characters
and explores how adhering to the established
way of doing things doesn’t necessarily
apply the way it used to.
Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is a
Harvard sophomore who has some talent
with computers. After he’s dumped, and
Grade: HHH1/2 out of 4
MPAA Rating: pG-13 for sexual content,
drug and alcohol use and language
Cast: Jesse eisenberg, Andrew Garfield,
rooney Mara, Justin Timberlake,
Armie Hammer, Max Minghella
Studio: Columbia pictures
Genre: drama
Jesse Eisenberg
deservedly so, by the girl he’s been dating
(Rooney Mara, who snagged the role of
Lisbeth Salander in the English-language
version of “The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo”), he drunkenly decides to create
facemash.com, a site that lets people vote
on the attractiveness of Harvard co-eds.
The site gets 22,000 hits in two hours,
crashing the Harvard server and gaining
the attention of not only the Harvard
powers-that-be but also the Winklevoss
twins (both played by Armie Hammer),
two Olympic-level rowers who think
Zuckerberg is the perfect programmer for
their upcoming site Harvard Connection,
a social site exclusively for Harvard students.
Zuckerberg sees the potential in such a
site and decides to improve on it, enlisting
his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew
Garfield, who will be Peter Parker in the
upcoming “Spider-
Man” reboot)
to help him
get it off
the ground.
The
only
catch is he
d o e s n ’ t
tell any
of this to the Winklevoss twins and their
partner, Divya Narendra, which is the first
of many deceptions Zuckerberg pulls off
as Facebook becomes a phenomenon.
Things get especially dicey when Sean
Parker (Justin Timberlake), the creator of
Napster, gets Zuckerberg’s ear and starts
filling him with ideas of world domination.
The only one who sees Parker as
his true used-car salesman self is Saverin,
but his lack of maturity and loyalty
to Zuckerberg prevents him from taking
proper action. In fact, all of these kids,
especially Parker, lack the maturity or life
experience to handle this incredible success
that’s found them at such an early
age.
One of the most fascinating things about
“The Social Network” is Zuckerberg himself,
and what drove him to create Facebook
and deceive almost everyone around
him. Was it his obsession with being in
one of Harvard’s exclusive clubs? To stick
it to everyone who had what he didn’t?
Or was it simply because a girl broke up
with him? The ambiguity of Zuckerberg’s
motives is the most compelling aspect of
“The Social Network,” and one that keeps
the movie fresh in your mind long after
the credits have rolled.
“The Social Network” will find its way
onto almost every “best of 2010” film list,
and deservedly so. It will probably even
get several Academy Award nominations.
But the exhausting pace of the dialogue
in the film’s first half leads to a bit of a
letdown in the second half, when things
slow down a bit and will likely keep it
from being the crowned the year’s best (a
title that “Inception” still has a firm grasp
on). Either way, “The Social Network”
is an excellent film
about not only
the creation of
Facebook, but
the creation of
the
Facebook
generation. q
Jesse Eisenberg (left) and Justin Timberlake
O peninG
FridAy, OCT. 1
1. “Wall sTreeT:
mOney never sleeps” (pG-13)
$19M $19M
2. “leGend Of The Guardians:
The OWls Of Ga’hOOle” (pG)
$16.1M
$16.1M
3. “The TOWn” (r)
$15.6M
4. “easy a” (pG-13)
$10.6M
5. “yOu aGain” (pG)
$8.4M
6. “devil” (pG-13)
$6.6M
“CaTfish” (pG-13)
“haTCheT ii” (nr)
“The sOCial neTWOrK” (pG-13)
On videO OCT. 5
“GrindhOuse” (r)
“The KaraTe Kid” (r)
“a niGhTmare On elm sTreeT
(2010)” (r)
“The seCreT Of Kells” (nr)
“spliCe” (r)
$48.7M
$32.7M
$8.4M
$21.9M
7. “residenT evil: afTerlife” (r)
$5M $52.1M
8. “alpha and OmeGa” (pG)
$4.7M
$15.2M
9. “TaKers” (pG-13)
$1.6M
“leT me in” (r)
“Case 39” (r)
BOx OFFiCe
weekend TOTAl
$54.9M
10. “inCepTiOn” (pG-13)
$1.2M $287M
Tv On dvd
“All in the Family:
The Complete Seventh Season”
“Ally McBeal:
The Complete Fourth and Fifth Seasons”
“Blue Mountain State: Season One”
“Bones: The Complete Fifth Season”
“Gunsmoke: The Fourth Season, Volume 1”
“The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Season 7”
“Medium: The Sixth Season”
“Monk: The Complete Series”
“Ugly Americans: Volume 1”
Page 44 • The Herald Weekly • Oct. 1-7, 2010
www.huntersvilleherald.com