The Social Network Script review

A movie written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher has a great combination going for it. Sorkin has written some great material including The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War, The American President and A Few Good Men. Fincher has directed modern classics which include Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, and Panic Room.

When I first heard they were making a Facebook movie I said to myself “Seriously?” When I heard this Fincher was attached, I thought “wasted talent.” However, when I read Sorkin was writing, this is what peaked my interest in the project. I still had my reserves about a Facebook movie. I got my hands on the script and here are my thoughts.

The Social Network is based on the novel The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal, written by Ben Mezrich. It’s based around the early years and creation of Facebook. It’s told through flashback with the main time setting being a courtroom. It is actually a fairly interesting tale on how it got started, why it got started, and where Zuckerberg wanted to take it. The site was created in a dorm room. Originally, Zuckerberg created a site call Facesmash when he was intoxicated. He had just been dumped by his girlfriend and he got drunk, blogged some nasty things about her, and decided to make this site where people compared images of two people and clicked on the picture which was more attractive. It was comprised of only Harvard students. To get the images, Zuckerberg hacked into nine Harvard facebooks and downloaded all the images. He created an algorithm with friend and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin which brought up the two images. They sent it to members of the Phoenix Final Club who sent it to a bunch of their friends who sent it to their friends. It was online for four hours and received 22,000 hits before it crashed Harvard’s system and was shut down. Facesmash used key elements which would evolve into Facebook. I’m not going to go through the whole story, which would be a synopsis. I’m just going to hit key areas of the script.

The script is approximately 162 pages. The characters are extremely unlikeable. It’s very common to real life. It’s not a cookie cutter movie where there’s a likeable guy trying to get the girl and he has an arch nemesis which he must overcome. Mark is an awkward person that manipulates people and treats others around him like garbage. When he is approached by three students to help them code their site, HarvardConnection, he agrees. However, instead of working on their site, he builds his own. He uses a compilation of ideas ranging from his own Facesmash, MySpace, and HarvardConnection. The basic concept of H.C. was that it was going to be a cross between MySpce and a dating site. It was going to be profiles for networking, but it was going to be exclusive. While working on his site, TheFacebook, Zuckerberg told them he was working on theirs. While what he did was a pretty dick move, you don’t feel bad for the people he screws over. They’re whiney and annoying. There idea wasn’t that original and the only reason they got money out of Zuck is because he wasted their time. It took three court cases for that. The movie doesn’t get too much into that though. The other characters of Eduardo and Sean aren’t likeable either. Eduardo sounds like he was pretty much a fool with a one track mind and didn’t really believe in the point of the site. Mark doesn’t care about the money; he’s invested in the site. Eduardo only cares about money. Sean Parker is the creator of Napster who sleeps around is more or less poor. He goes to the clubs and gets women and special treatment. God knows why, he doesn’t even have a house to live in. He counsels Mark on the expansion of Facebook and set up investor meetings. The other co-founders are barely established at all. I would have to wikipedia their names to find out. This script revolves mainly around Zuckerberg, Saverin, The Winklevoss twins, Divya Narendra, and Sean Parker. The script does leave out some of Zuckerberg’s unacceptable acts which include using members of the Harvard Crimson’s failed Facebook logins to get into their e-mail accounts. This project isn’t even endorsed by Mark in any way; I’m not sure why they wouldn’t paint the whole, brutally honest, picture.

All in all, I liked the script. I’m not sure if this draft was the final draft. Also, even shooting scripts get reworked throughout production. I’m going to see this in theaters. I like Jesse Eisenberg and I know he’ll do a good job. Justin Timberlake’s character seems similar to the one he played in Alpha Dog, I have no problems with him. The story was interesting and I actually believe it could make for a good movie. Rumors are that the flick is going to clock in at 3 hours and 10 minutes. This seems pretty long considering the subject, but it’s a complicated tale that shouldn’t be rushed and cut to two hours.

Overall, this is a minimum of 8/10. The writing and dialog is good, I’m just disappointed they left out some of Mark’s unflattering activities; which they probably did to make him likeable. Let’s face it; he is not a likeable guy. They should have made him more of an asshole.