Jim sent me to the movie The Social Network. . . ! It was my turn to go to a movie and write about it and this is a topic of particular interest because I am a Fan of Facebook. As the list of people who read Arrowsmith Shoes blog is growing I had a big responsibility to write an accurate review. My review in short is this: I love this movie and so will you!

The Social Network is fascinating and the dialogue is impressive. The two hours it takes to see this movie goes by so fast that the only disappointment I can write about is that the the movie wasn’t three hours. This is a fascinating movie. I’m a techie and freely admit it so I was anxious to watch how this incredible phenomenon started.

It makes an untellable story clear and fascinating. I’ve heard that its supposed to be impossible to make a movie about a writer, because how can you show him only writing? It must also be impossible to make a movie about a computer programmer, because what is programming but writing in a language few people in the audience know? Yet director David Fincher and his writer, Aaron Sorkin, are able to explain the Facebook phenomenon in terms we can immediately understand, which is the reason 500 million of us have signed up. Including me!

For brining us Facebook, we possibly have to thank a woman named Erica. “The Social Network” begins with Erica’s date with beer sipping Zuckerberg. During the date, Erica gets fed up, calls him an asshole and walks out. Zuckerberg is a social moron of course, and a total geek and he gets upset over being treated this way and Facebook is born out of revenge. Zuckerberg goes home, has more beers and starts hacking into the “facebooks” of Harvard dorms to collect the head shots of campus women. He programs a page where they can be rated for their beauty. This is sexist and illegal mind you, and proves so popular, it crashes the campus servers. After it’s fertilized by a mundane website called “The Harvard Connection,” Zuckerberg grows it into Facebook. Incredible. . . . ! (I work for a company that is kind’a similar in nature. :))

Is Zuckerberg a genius? Yes! Did he create Facebook alone? No!

Zuckerberg may have had the insight that created Facebook, but he didn’t do it alone in a room, and the movie gets a narration by cutting between depositions for lawsuits. Along the way, we get insights into the pecking order at Harvard, a campus where ability joins wealth and family as success factors. We meet the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer), rich kids who believe Zuckerberg stole their “Harvard Connection” in making Facebook. We meet Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg’s roommate and best (only) friend, who was made CFO of the company, lent it the money that it needed to get started and was frozen out. And most memorably we meet Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the founder of two legendary web start ups, Napster and Plaxo.

It is the mercurial Parker, just out of work but basked in fame and past success, who grabbed Zuckerberg by the ears and pulled him into the big time. He explained why Facebook needed to move to Silicon Valley. Why more money would come from venture capitalists than Eduardo would ever raise with his hat-in-hand visits to wealthy New Yorkers. And he tried, not successfully, to introduce Zuckerberg into the fast lane: big offices, wild parties, women, the availability of booze and cocaine.

“The Social Network” is a great film not because of its fascinating style or visual cleverness, but because it is very well-made. Despite the complications of computer programming, web strategy and big finance, the director makes it all clear, and we don’t follow the story so much as get dragged along behind it. I saw it with my fiance’ and we both loved. This film is very interesting and I highly recommend it.

Julie

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