Chad Taylor

The Sweet Smell of Success

The Social Network benefits from a second viewing. Aaron Sorkin's script is so upfront you get all the main points the first time but re-examination turns up all kinds of gems: Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) putting out a fire while he's putting out an actual fire; the champion rowers beginning to lose from the moment they're interrupted in the practice tank; the very Citizen Kane arc of Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) breaking into the frat party virtually, attracting and being surrounded by more and more people until he ends up being crowded out and as isolated as he was in the beginning; the Facebook blue that creeps into the edges of the sky until it's filled.

Sunrise and sunset are as one in this movie - it's on Fincher time - but the tone is very noir, The Social Network is really this generation's The Sweet Smell of Success, filled with talk and sleek urban treachery. Male bonds are more prized than male-female relationships and while there's much mention of money there's little evidence of it. The most direct expressions of wealth are crass and excessive; Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, a convincing shit) fusses over vintage whiskies in a droning nightclub and drives a humorous mom-mobile. Sex is likewise superfluous - the most fun women (girls) have in the film is with a bong. The real glitter is the chatter of keyboards.

Much has been made of how much Sorkin's Zuckerberg is like the real one. Jesse Eisenburg's performance certainly satisfies the stereotype of today's Asperger Kid (how time flies - it seems like only yesterday that all movie teens were bipolar) but it's more likely that the character has been reverse-engineered from the modern Zuckerberg as he appears in press statements and leaked online gloats. The audience is meant to to be appalled by his lack of empathy but an early scene in which he speedily constructs a site to insult every female on campus is undeniably cool: to object would be like criticising Robert de Niro for stealing in Heat. To be online is to be understanding of, if not actively engaged in, narcissistic stupidity. The character's actions are more of a caution: therebutforthegraceofgod-dot-com.

We live in a larger world now, something which Fincher telegraphs by shrinking the rest of it down to size. The Henley Royal Regatta is miniaturised in digital (i.e. faux) tilt-shift so it looks quaint, even petty; Harvard is a series of Roman-looking facades, like faded theater flats; a final decadent Los Angeles party is as squalid and domestic as the fraternity binges at the start of the movie. If TV, as someone once said, is about people walking in and out of rooms, the internet is about them being locked inside. Zuckerberg only physically exits locations a handful of times: trapped in a Last Year at Marienbad loop of opprobrium, he can't even leave his lawyer's office. His fate should be consolation for real people - Fincher compares them all to a caged chicken - but it's not. From the stupid girls to the repulsive boys, the stale arguments to the unsexy sex, The Social Network is a groovy place, and you want to be part of it.