Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin have made a spontaneous but provocative story about the origin of Facebook; a story that combines the parallel narrative writing of Sorkin, and the amazing directing and imagery of Fincher. Like The Godfather and Taxi Driver, The Social Network raises questions about who is good, what is right and the definition of success in America.
So, what do you expect from a 19-year-old drunk, heartbroken Harvard geek?
He hacked the Harvard computer system and created a site called “Facemash”, which features two female students side by side to choose the sexiest. The site received 20,000 hits in no time and the Harvard network crashed.
That Harvard student was the brilliant Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) the founder of Facebook; the blue window that changed A LOT in our personal and professional lives. Although the story of the movie shows how Facebook was founded, it has another side which shows that money could devastate people. It also shows betrayals, grudges, jealousy and hate.
“They had an idea, but I had a better one.” These were Mark’s words when he was dealing with the lawsuit against him from the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer), who claimed that Mark stole the idea of “Facebook” from them. The Winklevoss brothers, the gentlemen of Harvard, are two arrogant American aristocratic Harvard students, who try to use the geek Mark to create the “Harvard network” for them after the famous network crash of Harvard caused by Mark.
Brainstorming can help in many cases, but in this case it is not brainstorming. It is a kind of selfishness from Zuckerburg to choose to develop their idea into a better one but not giving them any credit.
The other lawsuit that Zuckerberg was dealing with was with Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg’s less-geeky self-described best friend. As any project or an idea it needs good finance to rise up and work, and here, it was the role of Eduardo Saverin. He provided the main capital money for founding Facebook. The servers that Eduardo provided made Facebook spread faster, first in the university campus, then other colleges in the state, followed by UK universities and so on.
Because of Zuckerberg’s arrogant and self-centered character as well as his jealousy of Saverin because he was less of a geek, more socially successful, and was accepted in a Harvard club whereas Zuckerberg was rejected, he betrayed Saverin by cutting him off Facebook. He pushed Eduardo out of the picture and got his shares in the company cut to next to nothing by the help of Napster co-creator Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake).
Cutting between the testimonies given in the respective Saverin and Winklevoss cases, we see the founding of Facebook, its combative aftermath, and Zuckerberg himself through multiple points-of-view. While the truth of who came up with Facebook, or who may be owed what, remains debatable, it is nevertheless crystal clear why, as the film’s great tagline says, you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.
And as we know, success bring people, we meet Sean Parker, the founder of two legendary web startups, Napster and Plaxo. It is the active Parker, just out of work but basked in fame and past success, who grabs Zuckerberg by the ears and pulls him into the big game. He explains why Facebook needs to move to Silicon Valley, where more money would come from venture capitalists and would be more than Eduardo could ever raise with his hat-in-hand visits to wealthy New Yorkers. Parker also tried, though successfully, to introduce Zuckerberg into the fast lane: big offices, wild parties, women, and the availability of booze and cocaine.
Anyway, money can destroy and devastate anyone, but not Zuckerberg, he wasn’t interested in money or hot dates with sexy women, he only wanted to work, work and work. He texted Eduardo in California saying, “In general we don’t do fun things. But that’s OK because the business is fun”. However, Zuckerberg was also kind of a jerk, and that was said by almost every single character in the movie.
He was called arrogant, selfish and simply in need of some proof that he is not as lonely or nerdy as he really is. This was even clearer in what he wrote on his business cards: “I’m CEO…..*****!”
Youssef Abdel Aziz
EDITORS: Mennat-Allah Yasser Zohny & Nada Adel Sobhi