YOU DON’T GET TO 500 MILLION FRIENDS WITHOUT MAKING A FEW ENEMIES

by mareikey

The drama film “The Social Network”, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher is about Facebook’s founding and Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eisenberg) life during that process. It was released on October 1, 2010 by Columbia Pictures as an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaire”.

After Mark’s girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) breaks up with him, he and his friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), create a webpage that makes it possible for users to rate the female student’s attractivity by their yearbook-photos. It is called FaceMash. Since Zuckerberg is drunk and angry about his ex-girlfriend, he posts condescending blog posts about her. In the meantime, FaceMash spreads super quickly and soon the traffic is overwhelmed and the servers on Harvard crash.

FaceMash’s popularity and the fact, that Mark Zuckerberg created it within one night calls the Winkelvoss twins’ (Armie Hammer) attention. They and their friend Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) ask him to work with them to build a dating network only for Harvard alumni. He agrees but does not contact them for a while.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg develops a social networking site, called thefacebook.com. Also, Saverin tries to become a member of the final club “Phoenix”. He gives Mark opening capital and becomes the Chief Financial Officer. Besides him, Dustin Moskovitz (Joseph Macello) and Chris Hughes (Patrick Mapel) support Mark.

Thefacebook.com develops rapidly and is soon available on other campuses and even countries. That way, Napster-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) takes notice of the site and its founder. He contacts him and soon Parker, Saverin and Zuckerberg meet up. Parker gave them the advice to “Drop the the. Just Facebook.” and tells them that “One million is not cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.” and connects Zuckerberg and Saverin with an angel investor, who puts a lot of money into Facebook.

Saverin is pushed out of the company by his share of the company being reduced after he froze the bank account that was opened to finance Facebook. Later, Sean Parker gets caught by the police taking drugs on a party and when he informs Mark about the incident, he says that this will bring consequences.

After that, Saverin sues Zuckerberg as well as the Winkelvosses do, accusing him of plagiarism.

This trial builds the frame of the movie and in between the scenes, that tell Facebook’s and Mark’s story, are placed.

I think, the movie is well-made. It is definitely worth it to be watched since it is very interesting, dramatic and funny. On the other hand, it must be said that not everything in the movie is true. In fact, Eduardo Saverin was an important source for Ben Mezrich’s book but Mark Zuckerberg did not cooperate with the filmmakers. The movie is said to contain 40% of the truth.

Anyway, in my opinion the movie should be watched even just to feel the great film experience and the thrilling story.