THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010) - 10/21/2024
My #1 movie of all-time
*Note: I’m slowly going to be listing off my top 5 movies of all time in order.
If you were like me, or the millions of other people in the summer of 2010, you went to sit down to watch Inception and this trailer came on:
And, if you were also like me, you couldn’t believe that there was a film about Facebook being made already, given that it had only been around for six years at that point. It seemed inherently stupid to make or even go see, but god damn, that trailer.
On October 1st, 2010, my roommate had a girl visiting and we needed something to do. He suggested we go see a movie, the one about Facebook. I agreed, because being a freshman in Altoona, there wasn’t much to do and so off we went to some multiplex. It’s hard to miss The White Stripes “Ball and Biscuit”, a deeper cut from their discography that I learned about five years prior (and is my favorite song by them) as soon as it rolls in, but that signaled my brain to latch on. For the next hour and fifty-nine minutes I was hooked. The way you are drawn in immediately in the bar scene between Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara, because the sound design is realistic - not bad - and you have to intently listen to the conversation that is happening over the college bar din. The opening credits where Trent and Atticus lay the foundation motif with “Hand Covers Bruise” that has several reprises throughout the film that gently shrink and become more and more distant as our main character does. The thrilling Facesmash montage, which juxtaposes the parallels of a traditional sex/drug/alcohol infused thrilling college party with the hacking that Mark does, which any recluse may find just as riveting. Then following the dissemination of that site through the Harvard campus and the chauvinistic idiocy that males perpetuate when their ego is threatened. And that’s just the first twenty minutes! Now, I could go scene by scene and rundown all of the memorable quotes, and shots, and music, and everything, but that is pointless, because smarter people than me have done that for the past fourteen years so I won’t.
When I left that theater on that October night fourteen years ago, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I liked it a lot for sure. I mulled over so much of what it was and what it was about in my mind over the next few months. My roommate also decidedly loved it and bought the blu-ray as soon as he could and watched it continuously. And in this time, it truly grew on me. It was a film that did make me want to make something and succeed, but also was hesitant about the structures and hoops you go through. But the film is less about obtaining success rather than the moral quandaries you face to get there. The shelling of values and dissolution of friendships to truly obtain what you may want. Which is why, even when the actual platform Facebook has become a punchline about an older generation, this movie is evergreen.
In the twenty years since Facebook was founded, Mark Zuckerberg has become one of the richest people on earth, expanding the Facebook - now Meta - brand, and gobbling up massive platforms that feed on your data and sell it to different parties. It has also become one of the biggest platforms (alongside Instagram and WhatsApp) to dispel misinformation. Which makes it funny and ironic that while this movie is for sure very fictionalized, watching it with a 2024 lens is weird. In 2010, it just felt like a normal story of one man’s pursuit to leave their mark. In 2024, You see the beginnings of a small man who wants to completely control so much and be taken seriously, he’ll leave anything and everyone in his wake. As long as Meta and Zuckerberg are around, what this movie is and encapsulates will continue to evolve throughout our time1.
It may seem odd to pick a film that on the surface is so mundane in subject as my favorite film. It may seem even odder to pick this Fincher film as my favorite of his immaculate body of work, but it is. Fincher found a way to take a story about some accidental billionaires and put his hallmarks of filmmaking on it, which keeps you on the edge of your seat through every viewing. It moves so fast that you have to closely pay attention to the screen to understand the full context. Part of that is the Sorkiness of the script, but the Fincher of it all forces him to cut out the traditional gristle and eye-rolling bits Aaron usually writes in, which is how we end up with this perfect dialogue.
This film made me realize the work and persistence that goes into making a great film. Fincher doing 99 takes of something just to get it right. The VFX created for the facial replacements of the Winklvi. The music and score. The practice with Sorkin and the characters and execution, which ultimately created a perfect script. The bevy new and upcoming actors who laid their mark in this film because - wow.
Think about this cast for a second. Jesse Eiseberg had been around, but this was, without a doubt, his absolute breakthrough into the mainstream. Andrew Garfield went on to become Spider-Man and one of the most beloved actors of the past fifteen years. Armie Hammer had great success until we found out about his cannibalism fantasies. Justin Timberlake convinced everyone that he was a good and serious actor with this film. Even Rooney Mara, who is in literally three scenes, steals the show, because when you think about this movie, for how little she is in it, those three scenes cast an intense and omnipresent shadow over the entire film.
I can’t pinpoint when or how this became my favorite film of all-time, but one day it just did. It’s funny how it has direct parallels to my top two favorite albums. At that point in time, I didn’t think anything would be able to unseat Return of the King, which was how I felt about Led Zeppelin’s IV. But the more I sat with this film and thought about it, I couldn’t help but find myself drawn to it, which was exactly how I felt about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy which came out around this time as well2. Maybe it was this inherent darkness to it, about a person struggling with their place in life even amongst success I found fascinating. Following those who are perfectly and inherently good becomes too boring, because that is not how anyone in life is. We all have our demons and journeys we struggle with and work through, and watching or listening to that is a fascinating piece of art. These are people who want to be taken seriously, but everyone else sees them as a singularity. It’s about people who need to break through the mold, but when they do, they destroy everything in their path. It's a fascinating psychological subject that will always get my attention.
There’s just a general feel with this movie that when fall reels its head, I need to watch it. It captures a campus essence and an era so perfectly. Not just the early 2000s either, but the exuberance and possibilities of late youth, being uninhibited by parental figures and figuring out life on your own. It feels like all of Fincher’s thrillers like Zodiac and Fight Club, yet somehow still has this tenderness that Benjamin Button and Mank do. It’s so funny when I tell people that this is my favorite film of all time because they laugh, but then when I throw it back at them and ask why that’s odd, they tend to stop. Once they mull over the story and craft and memorability of it all, it begins to make sense. Sure it’s not Star Wars, or The Godfather, or Vertigo. But it has this massive scale while feeling contained that can truly appeal to everyone, and that is another reason that makes this film so incredible.
I’m sure I just rambled for the last nearly 1,500 words, but I guess I can’t really explain why this is my #1 favorite film of all-time. It just is. It's just something that makes absolute sense to me that I can put on and get lost in every single time. And while it may not be The King’s Speech, it surely is the best film ever made to me.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t do my Fincher rankings so here they are:
The Social Network
Gone Girl
Zodiac
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Seven
Fight Club
The Game
The Killer
Mank
Panic Room
Alien3
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Unlike Dumb Money which doesn’t know what it is yet, and different from Blackberry, which had a finite ending.
November 22nd.