It must be an odd sensation to see yourself played on the big screen. In the wrong hands you could appear to be pompous, arrogant, and nasty. But the right actor or actress could elevate your status to near-saintly levels of adulation.
The world of cinema is brimming with instances of both. Robert De Niro's Jake LaMotta was a beast of a man with little to no redeeming features, but that hasn't stopped Raging Bull from being hailed as one of the greatest films of all time.
Who knows how Mark Zuckerberg feels about Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of him in The Social Network now that the dust has settled. Our most recent clue comes from his appearance as a surprise guest on Saturday Night Live earlier this year when he remarked that he found the film to be 'interesting' but wouldn't discuss it further. Upon the film's release he had been critical, and who can blame him? The Zuckerberg we see on screen is hardly the kind of person you'd want to be remembered as.
But the truth is, in the real world Zuckerberg is probably nothing like the detached, empathy-free, consequence-light man Eisenberg presents to us in David Fincher's latest offering. But would this film be anywhere near as brilliant as it is without Eisenberg's cold-as-ice depiction of Zuckerberg? Most would agree not.
The Social Network revolves around best friends Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) who devise a social networking website called 'thefacebook'. Mark is a genius computer programmer with brains pouring out of his ears and Eduardo is a suave, young computer studies student with a business mind who sees that the garnering of advertisers for the 'thefacebook' could start producing revenue.
Eduardo puts up cash so Mark can pursue the technical side of the website's creation and once the site goes live, the world changes forever.
It's not long before Mark is accused of stealing the idea for thefacebook from twin brothers and Olympic rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) whose HarvardConnect website Zuckerberg was supposed to be working on for the pair when he began creating thefacebook.
The story jumps back and forth in time between Mark's eventual court cases with Eduardo and the Winklevoss brothers and the early days of Facebook's concoction. Napster creator Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) slithers into the picture like a snake bearing forbidden fruit and it is his arrival in the film which sees a wedge driven between Mark and Eduardo's friendship.
And that is what The Social Network is all about at its core: the bitter decay of a once great friendship.
Big issues such as deceit, power, greed and loyalty are all explored in tragic detail and the final scene of the film in which Zuckerberg, alone in an office with his billions of Dollars intact, forces us to ponder questions about possession and materialism.
Although The Social Network owes much of its greatness to Eisenberg, whose portrayal of the man who created Facebook alone makes this film worth seeing, there is so much more on offer here. Not only is the plot riveting, but a fabulous film score by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor melds tension and fragility with soft piano keys tinkering and organ notes rumbling. Also, you have to have massive respect for any film which decides to end, and very aptly too, with The Beatles criminally overlooked track Baby, You're a Rich Man.
The Social Network could be the most relevant film of our generation. With over 600 million people using Facebook you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't have an account on the website nowadays, doing so has become almost social etiquette, and so with this in mind, The Social Network thrillingly explores the lives of those directly affected by the creation of the world's most popular website.
10/10
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