Enjoy It While It Lasts
Project 365 here 365Pieces
Oct 12th, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
The Social Network
Was I the only one utterly perplexed at the 100% rating this movie had on metacritic upon it’s release in America? How could seemingly by-numbers real life drama (I was basing this view mainly on the pretty boring so-so trailers) be doing so well? Is the story of Facebook really that riveting?
Well, I saw the movie on Sunday and I can tell you that it really is. I knew pretty much nothing about how Facebook came about before I saw the film except that there was a bit of legal drama surrounding it. If the movie is to believed (and I’ve read nothing that suggests otherwise), the site came about in 2003 after Mark Zuckerberg was dumped by his girlfriend and he drunkenly blogged about her ‘flat chest’. This in turn led to him creating the website Facemash where you would be given two pictures of two girls and have to choose which one was more attractive. Zuckerberg hacked into all the ‘face books’ (they contain a picture of each student) from the college residences to create Facemash and he was drunk while he did it. This leads to him meeting the ‘Winkelvi’ twins as he calls them and then things just spiral out of control (for the Winkelvi anyway, not Mark).
My presumptions about the film from seeing the trailers were entirely wrong. They don’t do this magnificent film justice at all. In fairness, I just saw a longer version of the one I saw before and it is actually quite nice, but all in all I wasn’t convinced it would be any good. Then there were the great reviews. Still, I wasn’t convinced, but now I wanted to see for myself. The chance came along for me to see it in the Lighthouse Cinema (greaaat place lads, seriously) and I took it and in doing so, I’ve seen a front-runner for film of the year.
As I said earlier, I knew little or nothing about how Facebook was made and came about. And that’s essentially what this movie is. It is a great story, one which encompasses so many things. But what I’m trying to get at is that it’s not just this twisty-turny story that makes this film so great. It’s the structure of the film, the amazing score, the top notch acting, the hyper-modern cinematography, the spot-on screenplay and it’s impeccable direction.
The acting was top class. Jesse Eisenberg proves that he’s more than a wanna-be Michael Cera. He is so much more. He’s in a league of his own and will surely get a nomination for Best Actor. His version of Zuckerberg is one of a fighter, a pathetic one none the less, but one who keeps on fighting. He manages to make you leave the cinema (almost) resenting it’s main character. I didn’t hate Zuckerberg, but he was the most unlikeable character in the film. Andrew Garfield proves why he’s as talked about as he is. He gives a really great performance as Zuckerberg’s best friend Eduardo and is the hero of the movie for me anyway. Best Supporting Actor obvs. Justin Timberlake surprisingly holds his own against these two future heavy-weights and once again, shows us another pathetic fighter who keeps on fighting for what he wants (albeit with much shadier motives than Zuckerberg).
The ultra-modern look of the film was probably the aspect of the movie I enjoyed the most. I could care less about the talk of this being the ‘movie of a generation’, but the cinematography is one of the driving forces of this idea. It’s shot on a dead but oh so alive coulour palette of browns, greys, yellows and blues. I didn’t think it would be possible to make something so cinematic out of what is essentially a court-room drama. But these dead-pan coulours just explode at the seams in front of you and give the film this electric quality. Even the over-the-top rowing race at Oxford (or was it Cambridge? I think it actually was Cambridge) maintains a level of class due to the superb visuals. I mean, setting a rowing race to the tune of an electric version of ‘In The Hall Of The Mountain King’ would be an absolute sell-out somewhere else, but it just works superbly well here. As well as the cinematography, I think this is due to the direction.
Dat scene (watch it in full screen).
It is such an over-the-top idea for a scene, but Fincher makes it something altogether classy in it’s execution. I really can’t put my finger on what it is and I wish I could, but this scene just works. When the scene began I was just absorbed by it straight away, and the beautiful vistas of the river and the flawless movements of the boats were just remarkable. It takes skill to make something so perfect it avoids dissection, and Fincher, with the help of the cinematographer and the punding score, manage to do it.
The way the film plays out is quite ingenious. We begin in a bar at the bar where he’s dumped then he makes facemash. It continues at the college for a while until we cut to a courtroom type place where Zuckerberg is being sued. A section of the story is told in the courtroomy thing and then we cut to wherever the story being told was taking place. The story would continue at this place, we might cut to a later stage in the story, cut again to the story being told in the courtroom, back to maybe California, where we finally end in the courtroom. That is a very, very, awkward way of describing it, but it’s simplicity is so brilliant and effective that it had to be mentioned.
The score, written by Trent Ranzor and Atticus Ross just suits the film perfectly. It goes back to what I was saying about the movie being of a generation. It’s full of sawing synths, syncopated drums, tremmoring strings and haunting piano. But it works so well together. The score really makes this film what it is: relevant, modern and entirely unlike anything out there right now. You can download a 5-track sampler of the perfect score here. For free!
I’m not too bothered about this being the defining film of a generation. I go to the cinema for pleasure mainly and try to keep things like that out of my head. This movie though, is kind of deserving of such a title. Forgive me for stating the facts, but Facebook has over 500 million members. Half a billion. A twelfth of the entire world has a Facebook account. I’m sorry, but can we stop for a second to marvel at this? In the space of 6 years half a billion people have put themselves on the internet to be viewed, judged, friended and declined. This is a thing of both horror and beauty.
Forget all the issues regarding the depiction of Zuckerberg being unfair: This is the movie of a beautiful monster being born. And what a beautiful movie it made.
4.5/5
(Also, I should give drunk blogging a go. I mean, if it got Zuckerberg a 25 billion dollar website, why shouldn’t I give it a try!)
