earlgreytea68 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
earlgreytea68) wrote2010-10-03 07:01 pm
earlgreytea68) wrote2010-10-03 07:01 pm
Entry tags:
The Social Network: Movie Review
Two background facts that should probably be known:
(1) I have been looking forward to this movie for an absurdly long time. I miss having Aaron Sorkin writing me new things, okay? If I won the lottery, I might use some of my winnings to make Aaron Sorkin write me stuff every so often. I don't go see many movies, so the fact that I was going to this one was a MAJOR EVENT. I couldn't wait, I was so excited. And then, as it got closer, and as I started reading reviews comparing it to "Citizen Kane," I started to get worried that it was being too built-up in my head and I was going to be inevitably disappointed.
(2) I did not have such a great day the day I went to see this movie. I'd gotten disappointing news about something that forced me to completely re-evaluate life plans and life choices and, you know, lightweight, unimportant things like that. And then work was being annoying, and it was raining, and there was a disabled subway train, and it was all a bit stressful.
So. With those two background facts in mind:
"The Social Network" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. There. I said it. Keep in mind, I haven't seen very many movies, but, in my limited viewing experience, I can proclaim that this movie is astonishingly good. It is not a movie about Facebook. It's a movie about...everything. I know that sounds completely ridiculous and over-stating it. "EGT," you are going say, "is completely insane." I am, it's true, but I cannot tell you what this movie is about, because it really is about everything. Ostensibly, it's about Facebook, I suppose, but it's also about promises and loneliness and friendships and the things you do to get everything you want and the minute after you get everything you want and the things you want in the first place and, you see, it's just about everything. It's a story about life, at this time, in this place, this world we live in. Is it a movie about social networks, about the Internet, about the 21st century? I guess, probably, yes, it is all those things. But it's just more than that, too, in a way that I can't really describe. Trust me, I've read the glowing reviews, too, many of them after I'd seen the movie myself, and I know the superlatives they use, and I know you're sitting there thinking we've all lost our minds. "But it's just a movie about Facebook." I know! I know! It is! And yet it's not.
I can't explain it. I can only say that I found the movie amazing, and for two hours I didn't think at all about all the depressing thoughts that I'd been over-thinking on my way to the theater. Is this movie fact? Is it fiction? Is there a hero? Or an anti-hero? I have no idea, and it doesn't matter, somehow, because you are in virtuoso hands, and every character feels real, and everything that happens feels real, and it doesn't end so much as...fade, and that somehow feels right, since it's a story that's still going on, in some ways, it's not even a story at all...
Okay, this is the worst movie review ever, I have told you nothing.
First things first: Is it written well? My God, yes. Is the dialogue all Sorkin-y? Well. Yes. But not overly so. Sorkin's style is easy to parody (but difficult to copy, if that makes sense), and there could have been a fear that Sorkin had been reading too much of his own press, after the unbearable self-reverential nature of "Studio 60," and I was worried about that, trust me, but the dialogue is razor-sharp and laser-quick, in a way that is distinctly Sorkin but doesn't feel like The West Wing. This is just how he writes, this man, and I wish I could take a master-class with him so he could teach me how he does it. So, good dialogue, check, and that was, honestly, all I was looking for from the movie, all I wanted to stop missing Sorkin so much. But I'd forgotten Sorkin's touch with male friendships. I don't want to get into whatever gender bias might lurk within Aaron Sorkin, I just want to say that he writes male friendships very well and very touchingly and he does it here.
But Sorkin's greatest triumph in this movie is not the dialogue and not even really the characters, it's taking something that isn't really a story, in the traditional sense, and giving it this epic arc, so that it feels like one of the great tragedies of our time. How he took a sprawling, chaotic, unclear story and shaped it until something that, yes, feels like it could be "Citizen Kane" is kind of awe-inspiring. I'd never really appreciated Sorkin's story-telling ability before, but it's here in this movie, shown off perfectly. I read Sorkin say somewhere that he felt he owed fidelity not to the truth but to the telling of the story, and I am grateful for that. Is this a true story? God knows. How do you measure "truth" anyway? The movie is structured around depositions, in which everyone, under oath, says something differently. Are they all lying? Or are they all telling the truth? There's a throwaway line about the prevalence of perjury (as a lawyer, I totally believe that), but the genius of the movie is that you don't think anyone's lying, you think every single person is telling their truth. There is no hero or anti-hero in this movie (for the most part). It's too clever a movie for that, in a lot of ways. Anyway, don't worry about the truth of the film. You can debate telling a fictionalized story about someone's life, of course, and I admit it makes me uneasy. But somehow it's the story that matters here.
The acting is incredible. Jesse Eisenberg's performance is the anchor of the film. In fact, the film might have been unbearable with a less deft lead. Justin Timberlake is phenomenal, in a way that annoys me, because must he be good at everything? It might be the perfect role for him, because it demands a lot of dash and glamour, and he carries it off well. Andrew Garfield is apparently very good in this film, other reviews have told me, and should get an Oscar, but I can't really tell you anything about his performance because every time he was on screen I was too busy shallowly thinking, He is very, very hot. At any rate, all of the actors carry off the dialogue well. I read somewhere that the script was estimated to play at two-and-a-half hours, but it comes in at two hours flat because of the double-time pace with which everyone talks. It's like His Girl Friday all over again.
Also, the score is kind of fantastic. It fits the movie perfectly.
In conclusion, I may be a lunatic, but I think the following: It is a very well-done film, and those of you who really enjoy films will probably enjoy it. Those of you who really like Aaron Sorkin will probably enjoy it.
Those of you who are crazy people like me and come out of this movie mulling all weekend about what it had to say about everything, let's form a support group.
(Oh, random aside: I happened to see this movie in a theater full of Harvard students. I'd forgotten about the Harvard connection until the movie opened with a scene at a bar not far from where I live, and I was like, "Oh, that's right..." Anyway, if you're curious, the students loved it. I heard one of them say it was "scarily accurate" in its portrayal of life at Harvard, for whatever's that worth. You should know, though, that Harvard's campus doesn't really look like that. Harvard doesn't allow filming. So the shots of Cambridge are bona fide, but, as soon as the characters are supposed to be on campus, it's some other school doubling in.)
(1) I have been looking forward to this movie for an absurdly long time. I miss having Aaron Sorkin writing me new things, okay? If I won the lottery, I might use some of my winnings to make Aaron Sorkin write me stuff every so often. I don't go see many movies, so the fact that I was going to this one was a MAJOR EVENT. I couldn't wait, I was so excited. And then, as it got closer, and as I started reading reviews comparing it to "Citizen Kane," I started to get worried that it was being too built-up in my head and I was going to be inevitably disappointed.
(2) I did not have such a great day the day I went to see this movie. I'd gotten disappointing news about something that forced me to completely re-evaluate life plans and life choices and, you know, lightweight, unimportant things like that. And then work was being annoying, and it was raining, and there was a disabled subway train, and it was all a bit stressful.
So. With those two background facts in mind:
"The Social Network" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. There. I said it. Keep in mind, I haven't seen very many movies, but, in my limited viewing experience, I can proclaim that this movie is astonishingly good. It is not a movie about Facebook. It's a movie about...everything. I know that sounds completely ridiculous and over-stating it. "EGT," you are going say, "is completely insane." I am, it's true, but I cannot tell you what this movie is about, because it really is about everything. Ostensibly, it's about Facebook, I suppose, but it's also about promises and loneliness and friendships and the things you do to get everything you want and the minute after you get everything you want and the things you want in the first place and, you see, it's just about everything. It's a story about life, at this time, in this place, this world we live in. Is it a movie about social networks, about the Internet, about the 21st century? I guess, probably, yes, it is all those things. But it's just more than that, too, in a way that I can't really describe. Trust me, I've read the glowing reviews, too, many of them after I'd seen the movie myself, and I know the superlatives they use, and I know you're sitting there thinking we've all lost our minds. "But it's just a movie about Facebook." I know! I know! It is! And yet it's not.
I can't explain it. I can only say that I found the movie amazing, and for two hours I didn't think at all about all the depressing thoughts that I'd been over-thinking on my way to the theater. Is this movie fact? Is it fiction? Is there a hero? Or an anti-hero? I have no idea, and it doesn't matter, somehow, because you are in virtuoso hands, and every character feels real, and everything that happens feels real, and it doesn't end so much as...fade, and that somehow feels right, since it's a story that's still going on, in some ways, it's not even a story at all...
Okay, this is the worst movie review ever, I have told you nothing.
First things first: Is it written well? My God, yes. Is the dialogue all Sorkin-y? Well. Yes. But not overly so. Sorkin's style is easy to parody (but difficult to copy, if that makes sense), and there could have been a fear that Sorkin had been reading too much of his own press, after the unbearable self-reverential nature of "Studio 60," and I was worried about that, trust me, but the dialogue is razor-sharp and laser-quick, in a way that is distinctly Sorkin but doesn't feel like The West Wing. This is just how he writes, this man, and I wish I could take a master-class with him so he could teach me how he does it. So, good dialogue, check, and that was, honestly, all I was looking for from the movie, all I wanted to stop missing Sorkin so much. But I'd forgotten Sorkin's touch with male friendships. I don't want to get into whatever gender bias might lurk within Aaron Sorkin, I just want to say that he writes male friendships very well and very touchingly and he does it here.
But Sorkin's greatest triumph in this movie is not the dialogue and not even really the characters, it's taking something that isn't really a story, in the traditional sense, and giving it this epic arc, so that it feels like one of the great tragedies of our time. How he took a sprawling, chaotic, unclear story and shaped it until something that, yes, feels like it could be "Citizen Kane" is kind of awe-inspiring. I'd never really appreciated Sorkin's story-telling ability before, but it's here in this movie, shown off perfectly. I read Sorkin say somewhere that he felt he owed fidelity not to the truth but to the telling of the story, and I am grateful for that. Is this a true story? God knows. How do you measure "truth" anyway? The movie is structured around depositions, in which everyone, under oath, says something differently. Are they all lying? Or are they all telling the truth? There's a throwaway line about the prevalence of perjury (as a lawyer, I totally believe that), but the genius of the movie is that you don't think anyone's lying, you think every single person is telling their truth. There is no hero or anti-hero in this movie (for the most part). It's too clever a movie for that, in a lot of ways. Anyway, don't worry about the truth of the film. You can debate telling a fictionalized story about someone's life, of course, and I admit it makes me uneasy. But somehow it's the story that matters here.
The acting is incredible. Jesse Eisenberg's performance is the anchor of the film. In fact, the film might have been unbearable with a less deft lead. Justin Timberlake is phenomenal, in a way that annoys me, because must he be good at everything? It might be the perfect role for him, because it demands a lot of dash and glamour, and he carries it off well. Andrew Garfield is apparently very good in this film, other reviews have told me, and should get an Oscar, but I can't really tell you anything about his performance because every time he was on screen I was too busy shallowly thinking, He is very, very hot. At any rate, all of the actors carry off the dialogue well. I read somewhere that the script was estimated to play at two-and-a-half hours, but it comes in at two hours flat because of the double-time pace with which everyone talks. It's like His Girl Friday all over again.
Also, the score is kind of fantastic. It fits the movie perfectly.
In conclusion, I may be a lunatic, but I think the following: It is a very well-done film, and those of you who really enjoy films will probably enjoy it. Those of you who really like Aaron Sorkin will probably enjoy it.
Those of you who are crazy people like me and come out of this movie mulling all weekend about what it had to say about everything, let's form a support group.
(Oh, random aside: I happened to see this movie in a theater full of Harvard students. I'd forgotten about the Harvard connection until the movie opened with a scene at a bar not far from where I live, and I was like, "Oh, that's right..." Anyway, if you're curious, the students loved it. I heard one of them say it was "scarily accurate" in its portrayal of life at Harvard, for whatever's that worth. You should know, though, that Harvard's campus doesn't really look like that. Harvard doesn't allow filming. So the shots of Cambridge are bona fide, but, as soon as the characters are supposed to be on campus, it's some other school doubling in.)
no subject
no subject
no subject
Sorry you had bad news, BTW. I hope that a way forward opens up for you soon.
no subject
As for the bad news, eh. Sometimes, reading life's signs is so exhausting!
no subject
I don't have money to go to the theater right now, but I will see it someday.
And the best movies are about "everything." You don't sound crazy at all. Yeah, great movies tell a story, but the best movies tell The Story- the story of what it is to be human.
...sorry about the philosophy rant there....
Thanks for the review!
no subject
And I think you're right, that the best movies always tell a universal story much larger than the movie's own story.
no subject
I'm sorry to hear about the bad news. **sending you good thoughts**
no subject
Thanks, I accept all good thoughts!
no subject
no subject
no subject
I don't know, I thought it served the wider theme and I'm surprised more people aren't seeing it like that.
no subject
no subject
(Anonymous) 2010-10-06 06:27 am (UTC)(link)Andrew Garfield is so beautiful, it's unholy. (Have you ever seen the film Boy A? He was brilliant.) His American accent has definitely improved since his stint on Doctor Who in those horrible 1920s pig episodes. Although I seem to recall that his character had a little bit of flirting action with Ten, and that's just delicious.
Elyse
no subject
no subject
no subject
I thought the movie was fabulous and very interesting. We should chat once you've seen it!
no subject
no subject