Too Many Movies: I'm Pretty Sure He's One Of Those Psychic Dogs

This week, Martin Brown plugs into The Social Network, Matthew J. Brady offroads into Herzog, by way of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? and Joe McCulloch wraps Bollywood blockbuster Veer-Zaara in his twisted eyestems.

The Social Network
The West Wing < Sportsnight, 2010
Spoiling Like Your Daddy, Martin Brown 

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is the creator and founder of Facebook. Marylin Delpy (Rashida Jones) is a young lawyer in the firm representing Zuckerberg in two lawsuits—one brought by his ex-best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, your new Spiderman), who wants to be recognized as Facebook’s co-founder; another involving twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played brilliantly by Armie Hammer), who claim that Zuckerberg based his website on their idea. Up until the very end of The Social Network, Jones’ role has been simply to observe Zuckerberg from two seats away at his hearings, look at him with a mixture of pity and admiration, and offer him some of her salad.

In the final moments of the film, Delpy and Zuckerberg are alone together in a conference room, and Delpy is apprising him of whether or not the hearings are going his way. She candidly lets Zuckerberg know how he would come off to a jury in an actual trial. “You’re not an asshole,” she tells him, “You’re just trying really hard to be one,” and it’s supposed to be an insight into Zuckerberg’s character—as if Delpy has been the one person the entire time who has been able to see Zuckerberg for who he truly is.

First of all, the line is a straight jack move. Howard Korder’s Boys’ Life is a play about three dudes struggling with early adulthood. Over the course of the play, Jack, the alpha of the group bullies his friends, talks horrifically about his wife, and contemplates an affair. In the final minutes of the play, we get our first glimpse of Jack’s wife, and she’s obviously head over heels in love with the guy. Drunk at a party, she comes up to Jack, puts her arms around him and ends the play telling him, “You’re not the worst man in the world.” “I’m not?” “No you’re not,” she says, “I’m afraid you’re just not. But you’d like to be…”

Back when Aaron Sorkin was writing for the stage, he and Korder ran in the same circles. Sorkin’s A Few Good Men premiered on Broadway the year after Boys’ Life ran in Lincoln Center, and the dude who played Jack in Boys’ Life played Col. Jack Ross (the Kevin Bacon role) in A Few Good Men. Of course, Sorkin has always cannibalized every source at his disposal for his own material—other writers, religious texts, 12-step literature, whatever—and, for the most part, he makes good on the adage that good artists borrow while great artists steal.

But in a film that’s at least partly about the theft of intellectual property, it’s interesting that Sorkin would completely lift his 11th hour dramatic revelation from one of his contemporaries. The Winklevoss subplot of The Social Network involves a group of upper-class Harvard kids suing Zuckerberg for stealing their initial idea—essentially MySpace for people with a harvard.edu email address—and turning it into Facebook. At the hearing, Zuckerberg tells them, “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.” It’s not hard to figure out whose side Sorkin would come down on in this argument.

One major problem with The Social Network is that Zuckerberg is clearly Sorkin’s protagonist, but not director David Fincher’s. In the hands of Fincher and Eisenberg, Zuckerberg has a nearly-Asperger’s level lack of social skills, which makes him almost impossible to root for. The “asshole” line at the end is meant to mirror a line in the opening scene, in which Erica Albright (Rooney Mora) is breaking up with him. “You’re going to think that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd,” she tells Zuckerberg, “It’s because you’re an asshole.” That we believe, because we’ve just watched him completely railroad her for an entire conversation.

Then we watch Zuckerberg act with destructive self-interest for the duration of the film. He treats everyone with contempt, except for Napster founder Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake), who he idolizes for being an even bigger sociopath than he is. He consistently disregards the people who go to bat for him. The movie insinuates that Zuckerberg even goes to great lengths to get his Facebook partners in trouble—it’s implied that he gets Parker arrested and outs his best friend Saverin as an animal rights abuser to the Harvard paper. Even the moments that seem intended to humanize Zuckerberg—like when he claims to have defended some of Saverin’s actions to his lawyer—are played by Eisenberg as one big, long mind game. The two things that Zuckerberg has going for him are his genius with programming and his wit—and with Sorkin supplying his voice, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with more surgical zings. Yet, it’s impossible to enjoy even Zuckerberg’s cleverest lines, because they come from such an unmitigated scumbag.

At the end, when Delpy tells him (and us) that he’s not an asshole, just acting like one, it’s supposed to be a revelation about Zuckerberg’s character, but it rings false. It comes off as just something Sorkin thought would be cool to have a character say. Worse, because it’s delivered by the one woman in The Social Network who is not portrayed through Zuckerberg’s eyes to be either a castrating bitch or a substance-abusing play toy, Delpy’s line serves as a kind of justification for his treatment of women. In Eisenberg’s hands, Zuckerberg is an unrepentant misogynist, spurred by his break-up with Erica Albright to immediately trash talk her on his LiveJournal, and seek revenge on her by creating a website called FaceMash, which allows Harvard boys to rank their coeds’ attractiveness. It becomes clear through the course of the film that Zuckerberg continues to be hung up on Erica, and his affection for her—which is really an obsession—drives him all the way to the final seconds of the film.

On its own, the final image is brilliant. Without giving too much away, it captures the ridiculousness and obsessive nature of a presumably common action. On the one hand, it hints that perhaps Zuckerberg is ready to stop demonizing women. But it also ascribes a subversive motivation to Zuckerberg’s actions—from the creation of FaceMash to the way he treats Saverin and the Winklevoss twins—as if all of his double dealings have been the result of him, like, getting his heart broke once. Coupled with Delpy’s line, it’s an insidious cliché—that underneath Zuckerberg’s abusive behavior is the heart of a sensitive little puppy dog.

It’s not Sorkin’s fault though—the line is supported by script, but it’s not supported by the movie. The script wants you to root for Zuckerberg, but Fincher and Eisenberg don’t. You could root for Saverin or the Winklevoss twins, but neither of them carry the through line of the movie. So you end up having to root for Facebook. And, in real life, every single person I know hates Facebook.

It’s almost as if Fincher and Eisenberg wanted to use The Social Network as a character study of someone with a borderline-pathological disregard for other people’s feelings—which is an intriguing idea, and one that you rarely, if ever, see in mainstream, big budget moviemaking. But that’s not the story that the script wants to tell. Sorkin wants to give Zuckerberg all kinds of character-y motives—he’s hurt by rejection, jealous of Saverin’s social status, pissed at the Winklevoss twins’ condescension toward him. But Fincher and Eisenberg want Zuckerberg to have a one hundred percent deflective personality, with absolutely no emotional attachment to anything, including his own creations. The movie is then a struggle between the two opposing points of view on its lead character.

That’s not to say that Aaron Sorkin is doing yeoman’s work with The Social Network, and that Fincher and Eisenberg are simply tanking his brilliant script. That’s definitely not the case. Sorkin’s job is to humanize the creation of a website, and he tries his ass off to do that. But at the end of the day, computer programmers simply create websites because that’s what computer programmers do, and the creation of Facebook is exactly as exciting as you’d expect stringing together a long series of letters and numbers to be.

This is a story about a guy with a good idea, and some other guys who want a piece of it. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. Sorkin tries to obscure the simplicity of the plot by telling the story non-linearly, with the two hearings narrating Facebook’s creation myth (which Sorkin, via Jones’ character, practically admits at the end is 100% bullshit.) The hearings never go to trial because they’re completely straightforward. As great as Sorkin’s dialogue is, it can’t make up for the fact that the framing device is simply a bunch of people sitting in a conference room talking. So you have that juxtaposed with window dressing—Sorkin failing admirably to turn business and technology into entertainment. The fact that it’s all out of order and chopped into MTV-sized chunks diffuses the dramatic tension even further.

Essentially, Sorkin and Fincher are saddled with a dull story that happens to be extremely marketable. Thing is, these are two of the best dudes working in film—and the moments when The Social Network succeeds are a direct effect of the magnitude Sorkin and Fincher’s personalities. When Sorkin and Fincher’s visions come together, the film is mesmerizing—like when Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss appeal to the dean of students at Harvard for his help in bringing down Facebook. Dean Summers (played by Douglas Urbanski, who has no other acting credit, or even a picture, on IMDB) immediately sees the meeting as a waste of his time, and the back and forth between the twins and the dean is Sorkin at his most skilled. Normally, upper-class antagonists like the Winklevoss twins (portrayed so amazingly by Armie Hammer that it took me half the movie to realize it was the same guy in both roles) would be played as two-dimensional preps. It’s to Fincher and Hammer’s credit that they are not only Zuckerberg’s comedic foils, but also two of The Social Network’s most sympathetic characters.

To be fair, there are a ton of memorable moments and scenes in The Social Network (the story behind Saverin’s “abuse” of a chicken is another one that comes to mind). But as good as David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are, and as hard as they work at it, they can’t overcome the fact that the story at the root of the film is not nearly as interesting as they’re making it out to be—it’s a two hour blockbuster that plays like a five hour documentary. They make it harder on themselves by working at cross-purposes with their protagonist—Sorkin trying to humanize him, Fincher trying to dehumanize him. Both Sorkin and Fincher’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg and The Social Network as a whole are often fleetingly entertaining, but ultimately feel tedious and empty—which is, ironically, a lot like Facebook itself.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?
Werner Herzog, still kickin' it in 2010
Matthew J. Brady 

Michael Shannon is a fucking madman. I don't know if I've ever seen a guy who can play crazy so believably, or at least so intensely that it sure seems everyone around him believes it. He's a scary motherfucker, and his best roles see him intimidating people through the sheer force of his glare, a gaze that can burn holes in the scenery and turn people to his will, no matter how bizarre it seems. In real life, his characters are people that would make you want to run screaming, but on screen, he's compellingly creepy, somebody that you can't figure out, but seems to have some substance under the surface of insanity, a hint of why people would spend any time with him when he's so visibly, dangerously insane.

Shannon has found a perfect collaborator in Werner Herzog, who is no stranger to crazy intensity after years of working with Klaus Kinski. While this movie follows Shannon's character, an actor-turned-murderer-turned-apparent-hostage-taker, through various flashbacks involving his relationships with people before and after his mental breakdown, it also gives Herzog the chance to depict such amazing locales as the Peruvian jungle and a crowded village in western China, coming up with some typically incredible imagery. As beautiful as all that is, the best stuff all revolves around Shannon though, as Willem Dafoe, playing a police detective, interviews Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier, playing his inexplicable fiancee (who would want to marry this guy?) and theater teacher/director, prompting flashbacks to the past and many moments with various levels of craziness, ranging from lines like "I'm gonna take my two best girls out for a drive...across the Coronado bridge at 90 miles an hour", to being convinced that God is the guy on the "Puritan Oatmeal" container, to angry recitation of lines from the audience of a performance of the play in which he has been replaced as an actor. He's pretty awesome to watch, and Herzog puts plenty of cool visuals around him, like moments when the actors freeze in place and stand still for a full minute or two at a time, or the camera swoops across the street in from of the house where the standoff is taking place. It's a weird-ass movie, but one that's pretty fascinating to watch. Herzog! Let's see more of this shit, Werner, I demand it!

Veer-Zaara
‘twas ever thus, 2004
Joe McCulloch 

In terms of simple engagement and the difficulties thereto, Indian popular cinema isn’t so different from Japanese comics; both are long-lived, well-developed, prolific traditions, bolstered by a sizable domestic audience attuned to particularized aesthetic traits. Both can also seem intimidating to the curious outsider, and not just because they’re big - they’re popular, which suggests some measure of soft dictation from the populace, given to all the popular trends and political fascinations that might ensure greater appeal, to say nothing of the proven moneymaking tropes as firm-set in the art as photographic capture or ink on paper. All the more confusing for the foreign viewer: you can ‘learn’ Béla Tarr or David B. in fairly short order - - though mastery is a different thing -- but who wants to bumble into nests of formulae and age-tested local expectations? Bollywood! Manga! It’s like running for public office where the election is also math class.

Yet there’s always a few gateways marked off on the medium maps, and this -- a Romantic Saga, All Caps, concerning a strapping Indian rescue pilot (Veer) and a pampered Pakistani free spirit (Zaara) falling madly in love and encountering several noteworthy obstacles, predominantly stemming from Pakistan’s side of the border -- is an enduring favorite for the ‘00s. Maybe that’s because it’s so paradoxically immersed in history, coming from father-son arch-populists Yash & Aditya Chopra - the former serves as director, his one and only outing as such in the ‘00s, having headed Bollywood films for over half a century and founded production studio Yash Raj Films in 1970, while the latter is screenwriter, as he has been for many Yash Raj productions, although the three directorial credits of his own include 1995’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, arguably the defining work of Big Money Bollywood for a generation.

As such, it’s not so surprising that Veer-Zaara straddles the past and present. The star of the show is undoubtedly male lead Shah Rukh Khan, who also starred in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and indeed has prominently appeared in every film Yash or Aditya Chopra has directed since 1993. Granted, that only adds up to six movies, but it nonetheless speaks to how closely the duo played a role in molding one of the biggest popular draws in the country; truly their fates are intertwined. Female lead Preity Zinta, meanwhile, represents a different angle: the year prior to Veer-Zaara, she had testified as to receiving extortion threats during the filming of an earlier picture -- a financier of which was accused (and later acquitted) of ties to organized crime -- and spent two months in witness protection. At the time of the film’s release she had become a columnist for BBC News Online, and a few years later began to withdraw from mainstream Hindi film -- the terms of art for lead performers are “hero” and “heroine,” by the way, which speaks mightily of presumptions -- to participate in the delightfully euphemistic “parallel cinema” of India, the non-mainstream.

Veer-Zaara, however, is very, very mainstream. Maybe several mainstreams, opening with a rather ’70s- style booming voiceover narration of story’s theme before honing in on SRK wandering through soft-focus pastures in a succession of immensely pastel outfits, the sun shining and a song singing before his unseen lady love is shot down. He wakes from this old-time dream in a Pakistani prison, but know that Yash Chopra is not announcing the death of the misty melodramatic romances upon which he made his name; rather, he intends to place a truly delirious ideal of love in direct combat with modernity, complete with supporting characters sputtering over how impossibly awesome and inspiring the nigh-mythic love of Veer & Zaara is, despite her arranged marriage to a sharply mustached Pakistan politico who damns our SRK to 22 merciless years in jail, That Yellow Bastard style, having replaced his identity with that of a loathed terrorist.

That’s kind of just the tip of the iceberg of tears, which sounds impossible, but AH - there’s your problem! Nothing is impossible in the face of true love! And, if the appeal of Bollywood so often lies in its comfort with stylization, its songs and colors, declarative ideals and ecstasy of movement, a swooning portrait of this sort -- not so far off from both old-fashioned Hollywood blockbusters and popular stage musicals, the latter perhaps giving the reluctant viewer an ‘in’ to all the singing and dancing -- provides for smooth entry, so intent it is on being as popular! and big! and old! yet! new! Its substance is that of countless other pictures, but that’s part of the gateway’s education education the Chopras pursue their goal with a zealousness-unto-shamelessness that provides for a spectacle all its own.

Not one dramatic revelation in this movie goes unaccompanied by a massive BUM BUUUM of thumping music, and hardly a tear-jerking opportunity is missed. Naturally the project is also starfucking of the highest order, so SRK stands always at the center of this maelstrom of passion, narrating a 90-minute how- we-met flashback to his lawyer -- of course, a young female lawyer betting it all on this one big case that might crack wide the boys’ club of Pakistani law, all to honor her dead father! -- and later delivering a crucial thumbs-up to instill just the confidence she needs to deliver a vital opening address to the court. Then there’s a teary-eyed climactic speech by the Man himself, which results in an honest-to-god slow clap, wherein one person begins applauding in a silent room, rising to his feet as the entire population of the room -- and perhaps, implicitly, the entire world -- gradually joins in the adulation.

I know it sounds like I’m poking fun at Khan, but he’s an effective, charismatic performer, basically perfect at essaying a cheesy romantic galoot, and juuuust careful enough to stay on the good side of twitchily hamming his way through the post-prison nervous years of his character. In other words, he’s a consummate professional, entirely at ease in a world prone to fêting his inarguable magnificence. By far the best stretch of the movie is the flashback period after Intermission (that is, before the courtroom drama begins), when the plot shifts from Falling In Love to Winning Her Back. Zinta starts it off by writhing through a long dance sequence that doubles as a heavily coded masturbation extravaganza, seeing a shimmering vision of SRK in a leather jacket barging in on her daily life to perform family-appropriate seductive maneuvers.

After that it’s 45 nonstop minutes of virtually everyone in Pakistan getting blown off their feet by the unlimited romantic virtue and cast-iron moral fiber of cinema legend Shah Rukh Khan, who had resigned from his position with the Indian military -- hilariously presented onscreen as doing absolutely nothing other than rescuing citizens and travelers in peril -- all for the doomed pursuit of his lady love, whom he reunites with to the sound of pounding raindrops and chanted lyrics. Then her ambitious father is bedridden! How can she ruin her beloved parents by running off with his perfect, incredible man? God damn you, expectations of Pakistan!!

This leads to the cherry on top of Veer-Zaara. Not only does it epically congeal all sorts of vintage populist ingredients for modern delectation, but it quite fascinatingly traffics in popular politics. This is where the heroine, comes in. Adequately moony in luv but much more interesting as her increasingly feisty character ages, Zinta makes the best of a limited but duel role: that of romantic victory, and feminist triumph. Since everything needs to be big in this movie, Zaara’s outsized character serves to challenge notions of women’s roles in society, an image doubled by Rani Mukerji’s aforementioned attorney. Both of these characters are from Pakistan, and the nation thus characterized as most in need of throwing off its male-dominated nature. Oh sure, Special Guest Star Amitabh Bachchan (truly an icon of icons in Hindi pop cinema) shows some reluctance to countenance higher education for Indian women in the film’s first half, but literally all it takes is a nice speech from Zinta to cause a wholesale shift in his outlook. But let an Indian cross the border for the purposes of true romancin’, and oh shit - his dreadful treatment necessitates a formal apology from the courts of Pakistan at story’s end, the prosecuting attorney having made a devilish argument as to the superiority to the state over the individual.

It goes deeper: the title “Veer-Zaara,” consisting of the lead characters’ names, suggests not only a mythic saga, specifically a Punjab saga, in that the film concerns the Punjab region crossing from one nation to another, but some equanimity between characters, and thereby between the nations they represent. However, just as SRK is clearly the focus of the action, so is India. Zarra only meets Veer because her beloved dying governess wants her ashes returned to her homeland. So she journey’s from the ominous, looming walls of artificial Pakistan to a wildly agrarian throwback abridgement of India, where politics are local and minds are open. Sure, she keeps mentioning that her homeland is really nice too, but Chopra only depicts his own home, the home of his biggest audience. Hey, Pakistani parents are good-intentioned too… but given to facilitating horrible crimes to save face in front of a presumably ignorant, inflamed electorate. SRK blesses the ground of Pakistan at film’s end, but… he’s not going back.

As a result, the film behaves as basically a three-hour concern troll on the topic of Indio-Pakistani relations, insisting on a good moral “we’re all the same, we all have our faults” kind of theme, but burdening one nation with almost the entire burden of change. And I don’t even think this is intentional, although I also think that Yash & Aditya Chopra have a burden of their own, pop’s burden of beauteous appeal to the audience. So India is lovely and green, and other lands are built by hand, Punjab or not, and wherever the non-Hero and non-Heroine roles must occur, they are dispersed away from the audience. This too is a fascination and a hazard of pop culture at its most monied, flattery getting you everywhere. Veer confronts Zaara’s mother, once skeptical of this man’s intent, but finally overwhelmed by his goodness. “Is every son from your country like you?” she whispers, agog. He assures her that every Indian mother is like her, as the floor verily floods with reluctant foreign tears, on the soil that will damn him for decades, that will leave his parents dead without him, that will ruin Zaara and shame the law. The music swells! The camera pulls back! Oh, if only we all could have stars like this! If only!

-Martin Brown, Matthew J. Brady & Joe McCulloch, 2010

Comments

[Tucker Stone]

This was the review where I realized Joe had turned me into a Bollywood fan. High fives to Jesus Christ, but I've got a new religion.

[Fayzan]

Jog should review every Bollywood film.

[Dave]

Fucking loved My Son My Son, What Have Ye Done. Bad Lieutenant had its moments, but when I finished with My Son, I was like "holy shit, that's the movie I wanted Herzog to make."

Shannon and Zabriskie were just amazing; the bit with Shannon at his drumset was one of the most perfect scenes I've seen all year. That was around the point where my sister asked me "I can't tell, is this supposed to be disturbing or funny?" To be fair, I don't think she'd ever actually watched a Herzog movie before this.

[Jbird]

I'm still a little haunted by Michael Shannon's bit in Delocated.

[Sean Witzke]

Marty - I haven't seen it yet but I was ind of expecting exactly what you're saying? I'm not really a Sorkin guy (I watched Sports Night for Natalie), so there's not much difference for me with Fincher directing him than Fincher directing Eric Roth. Since Fight Club it's really been Fincher fighting his subject matter that makes me want to see his movies. That's why I'm excited to see him do this and then Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo, because you know he's not going to just shoot the book.

[Marty]

To be fair, Fincher does some really interesting stuff. Just the fact that he lets Eisenberg go so negative and emotionless with the main character is like Wow, I've never really seen that in a film like this before. Sorkin gets some great stuff in, too. But overall it just feels like something's missing, you know?

[Infrequentreviews.blogspot.com]

@Martin, I agree that the line about him trying to be an asshole fell flat. It was a strange line to end the movie, because the tone was so different from the entire movie that had preceded it. Also, it was so obviously untrue. Zuckerberg is portrayed as an anti-social geek. He's not "trying" to be anything other than a great programmer, seeking admiration only from those he admires such as Parker. Most of the movie is quite consistent on that point, and it is highlighted on the line where he explains that he doesn't hate anyone, which I felt was quite genuine.

But I really think you misinterpreted many other points. He was not involved in the chicken fiasco, and had nothing to do with the police showing up at the house party. The lawyer, Delpy, was just showing him how easy it would be to convince a jury otherwise. The audience, however, is privy to his innocent reactions during the events themselves and his sincere surprise at the accusation. There was also no indication that he was jealous of Saverin's improving social status; only Saverin's accusations even introduce the idea. Once Facebook starts to take off, Zuckerberg doesn't seem to care about any other kind of recognition.

A couple other points: Zuckerberg does not idolize Parker because he is a bigger sociopath, he idolizes Parker's success with Napster. He is further drawn in because of Parker's geek-dream charisma.

You also touched on the point of the misogyny in the film. This is entirely introduced by the filmmakers, which is really sad. From what I've heard, in real life Zuckerberg had a girlfriend throughout the entire creation of Facebook and is married to her today. The film version fails the Bechdel Test, which is simply the question, "Does the film contain at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man?"

Personally, I thought the structure of the movie worked quite well, though it was a little confusing at first. My only complaint there is that they never explained why Saverin was the only one screwed out of his percentage. We are left to assume that Zuckerberg caved to Parker's desire to dump him. To me, that was the crux of the movie. While the lawsuit brought by the twins was the motivating force of the story, the lawsuit brought by Saverin was the motivating force of the character exploration. The failure to resolve that aspect is the only flaw that really bothers me as far as story structure.

[Marty]

I think you're operating under the notion that the camera and the audience have a neutral point of view, but they don't. The framing device is such that the flashbacks are supposed to be illustrations of what's being described in the hearings--that's established in the beginning when they introduce testimony about the breakup with Erica Albright. So we never really see Zuckerberg's "innocent reactions." We see an illustration of someone else's description of them. It's on some Usual Suspects shit.

And there are implications that Mark is jealous of Eduardo getting punched by the Phoenix--he says a couple of passive agressive things that are meant to sound positive but actually cut down Eduardo's confidence. That's why they get laughs in the theater. But they're also meant to illustrate Zuckerberg's ability to be emotionally manipulative.

As far as him burning his friends, the film leaves it ambiguous, but shows that he's definitely capable of it. It's insinuated that he did, which I think is what I said, and not just by Jones' character (iirc).

And I don't think that Zuckerberg consciously thinks of himself or Sean Parker as sociopathic, that was a joke. But he does idolize the manipulative aspects of Parker--how he treats women, for instance. That's what the club scene is about.

As far as the structure goes--in my opinion, it didn't add anything thematic to the film (like in, say, The Sweet Hereafter), and it wasn't necessary to tell the story (like in Memento), so it's just a writer trick. Like a fucking voice-over narration. And Sorkin's better than that. He could have easily told it linearly with longer scenes and slower tension builds and bigger payoffs, and it would have been a better film. I think the reason he didn't to that is to try and conceal the fact that the story underneath is pretty weak.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. And for that Bechdel rule. I'm going to put that in my pocket.

[Guy Smiley]

I too was really disappointed in the lawyer's closing comments in "Social Network." She is the film's sole standin for the audience: Early on, she's impressed by this genius impresario, to the point where she's nearly hitting on him. By the end, she doesn't want to be in a room with him. While technically Zuckerberg is her client, she never questions anyone, as the main lawyers do, so she's the only character in the film not to advocate a position, either. She's us, watching and forming an opinion.

So, after we've seen the story of What An Asshole Mark Zuckerberg Is, she not only says he's not an asshole, she says, that the testimony (i.e., the entire film) is worthless. She says that she assumes that 85% of what she hears at a deposition is exaggeration, and the other 15% is lies. Clever lawyer line, but what it tells the audience (to whom the line is all but delivered with subtitles for extra clarity) is that 1. Mark's not an asshole and 2. the film you just watched? Don't buy it.

I don't think that's what Sorkin/Fincher intended. I think maybe they saw this as providing a little balance after having taken one perspective on MZ and run with it. But that's what they get, a character in one scene pretty much discrediting the entire film.

I still liked the film a lot, because it flowed well and was interesting. I also liked your review -- breaking down the story Sorkin is telling versus the one Fincher is telling really clarifies my perception that MZ is the film's villain, despite itself. Good stuff, thanks.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Oh, yeah, Zabriskie is almost as crazy as Shannon. The scene where she keeps coming into his room to interrupt his conversations with his fiancee, and then just standing there? Damn.

[Abhay]

Just got out of the Social Network. I liked the movie fine, though the reviews are outrageously positive-- but I guess I'm happy that tech people finally got their own Wall Street (i.e. the Oliver Stone movie not the actual street). It's strange no one's really ever made a great movie about the business of computers. At least, I grew up knowing about all those guys-- Jobs or Andy Grove or whoever, so... I've never seen a movie that mentioned venture capital as much, which was fun...

And Fincher filming college shit sure was fun to look at. Plus: Sorkin's crazy issues with women are funny to me, especially since this time they were Asian and liked cocaine and I didn't have to wonder which one was Kristyn Chenewoth. And Timberlake was pretty damn good-- those POV shots of him Fincher put in at the club scene were really interesting.

But boy, Fincher + Sorkin is an unholy union. Fincher's so much about getting things right, and Sorkin seems so oblivious to how much he gets wrong. "Here is my tv show about how comedy writers think they're saving the planet Earth with their comedy. Here is my show about how idealism is a driving motivation behind politics." Having to watch those Candyland depositions for two hours... And the movie concluding with a 2nd Year Associate giving speeches to a billionaire client? Sorkin can be a lot of fun-- his dialogue is cute, and if you want to go visit Candyland, he puts together a cute board game. But mixing his strain of romantic bullshit with Fincher's precision... I don't know if that works.

I don't know though. The last lines worked for me fine but I was rooting for Zuckerberg the entire time. Just because they cast some puppy-dog actor to be the CFO guy, I'm supposed to root for him...? Fuck that guy-- he was wrong about everything and he was making bad choices the entire time. Let the puppy-dog go get make Spiderman movies-- I'm on Team Zuckerberg.

[Abhay]

Boy, that movie's not sitting well with me at all. If the last hour's any indication, by tomorrow, I'm not going to have a very nice opinion of it all... Huh...

[Lugh]

Abhay, you might want to check out Pirates of Silicon Valley - it's a made for tv "docudrama" about the rise of both Microsoft and Apple, and the rivalry that existed between them. It's good tv quality, I think, and it presents Gates and Jobs as two larger than life personalities. Well worth watching.

[Jason Michelitch]

"The script wants you to root for Zuckerberg, but Fincher and Eisenberg don’t."

I haven't seen the film yet, but I did read the script, and I never got the impression that I was supposed to root for Zuckerberg. The main thing I liked about the script was that Sorkin managed to write a main character that was so thoroughly a dick, and not try to twist the story into the kind of triumph-of-the-human-spirit everything-must-come-out-happy thing he always does. Gave me hope for "The Politician," which is a story that to tell right will require a meanness that, until the script for "The Social Network," I hadn't really seen Sorkin bring to the table.

[Marty]

Sorkin made Zuckerberg the film's protagonist, when he could have easily made it Saverin. Of course he wants you to root for him.