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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

The Social Network Review

Very few films earn the distinction of defining a generation. THE SOCIAL NETWORK, director David Fincher’s new film about the young men who invented and sued each other over the creation of Facebook, is one of those films. It captures a moment when a new breed of rebel initiated an earthchanging revolution that many over a certain age don’t even realize has happened — the sometimes ugly but bloodless transition from the Web to Web 2.0 that occurred in the mid 2000s, when the internet became a place where average people weren’t just going online to find information, but were creating and sharing it, with Facebook at its epicenter.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK is based on the book ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich, both of which have been denounced as fiction by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and are largely based on interviews with the ex-business partners who sued him. But even if nothing in THE SOCIAL NETWORK ever happened in real life, though some of it clearly did in some form, it wouldn’t change the fact that this is a fascinating story with a brilliant screenplay by Aaron Sorkin that frames Facebook’s origin story around two mediations attempting to determine who owns which piece of it.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg as an intense, gifted programmer whose intelligence and poor social skills make it impossible for him to attain what he wants most: recognition, popularity and a girlfriend. So, in stages, Zuckerberg creates Facebook, an online world where Harvard students like himself can have the kinds of connections he craves, with Zuckerberg and his friend, roommate, and eventual Facebook CFO Eduardo, played by Andrew Garfield, as its kings.

Justin Timberlake is perfectly cast as Sean Parker, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur known for big risks, big failures, and boundless charisma. More importantly, Sean understands the ethos of the internet that Zuckerberg lives by, where the ability to break rules is reason enough to do it, coolness and creativity are commodities more valuable than money, and that when it comes to the internet, there’s no limit to how big you can think.

This decidedly neo-punkrock hacker attitude is essential to understanding THE SOCIAL NETWORK, the internet age we live in, and Zuckerberg himself. While many will see Zuckerberg’s character as cold, insensitive and calculating, his loyalty to the higher principles of internet culture explains, but doesn’t justify, his actions and how he’s able to dismiss those around him who don’t understand or abide by them.

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of the film is that it has no good guys, but rarely are there in real life, either, and part of the script’s brilliance is that you understand the motivations of all of the characters, including the handsome, crew-star Winklevoss twins and their business partner, Divya, who believe they inspired the concept for Facebook, and why Zuckerberg would take pleasure in sticking it to guys who lived in a social strata closed off to him.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a triumph on almost every level. Shot with state-of-the-art RED HD cameras, the cinematography accomplishes a darkened richness and resolution moviegoers have never seen before, and the propulsive, portentous electronic score by Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor is pitch-perfect when paired with this story of the dark side of a digital titan.

The performances by the young, largely unknown cast are top-notch, and expect to hear Oscar buzz around Timberlake’s supporting role, amongst other things. For a film where the primary actions are talking and writing code, the story moves like a rocket, with themes of friendship, betrayal, ambition and outsiders searching for acceptance that fit in any era. Director David Fincher is at the top of his game, which says a lot for a guy who directed neoclassics like SEVEN and FIGHT CLUB. And as a statement on the internet era and the young rebels who created it, THE SOCIAL NETWORK stands alone, reminding us that the web 2.0, after all, is about connecting, but in service of that quest, we can still end up alone.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK is rated PG-13 and is in theaters now.