The Social Network
Film Review
Claudine Broadbent

The Social Network

It was only a matter of time before a film was created on the making of the social networking site known at Facebook, as there is enormous interest about the beginnings of this phenomenon. The film captures Mark Zuckerberg’s (played by Jesse Eisenberg) social interactions throughout his time at Harvard University highlighting the friendships, enemies, loyalty, competitiveness, envy and the cost of success within the characters.

Columbia Pictures released the social network film in the United States in 2010, directed by David Fincher. The film starts off with Mark and his girlfriend Erica Albright (played by Rooney Mara) drinking at a pub where he states that he wants to do something substantial that will get the attention of the clubs as he believes they are exclusive, fun and will lead to a better life. Further in the film Mark and Erica get into an argument, which Mark then rants on his blog about her. In a frenzy he creates Facemash, which is a spiteful sight that encourages other guys to rate photos of campus girls against each other.

This is the downside of social media where people can vent their anger about others for all to see. When people post messages, whether they are good or bad, it means that it is online for others to read and once its posted, you are not in control of the recipient’s reaction as they could screenshot it, forward it onto someone else, save it, etc.

Facemash catches the attention of wealthy twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer), and they ask Mark to work with them on Harvard Connection, which is a social network for Harvard students aimed at dating. Mark approaches his friend, Eduardo Saverin who is played by Andrew Garfield with an idea for a new online social network website called The Facebook in which Eduardo provides one thousand dollars towards the setup. This is when the Winklevoss twins believe that Mark stole their concept of creating a social network site. Eduardo and Mark meet Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) who suggests to drop ‘The’ from The Facebook and to move to Palo Alto in California. Facebook now expands to two continents.

Mark’s personal life takes a downward spiral with the Winklevoss twins deciding to sue the Facebook Company and Mark for theft of intellectual property and also Eduardo ends up freezing the company’s bank accounts because he does not like Sean Parker making business decisions. Eduardo’s share in Facebook drops from 34% to 0.03% and his name is removed from the master head as co-founder. Both twins receive a settlement of $65 million and Eduardo receives an unknown amount.

Clever film techniques were used when showing the Winklevoss twins as they were mostly played by one person (Armie Hammer). Creative camera angles, blocking and special effects were used to artificially duplicate Armie. Josh Pence was an actor that had a similar build to Armie and was used as a body double when both twins were in the same scene such as the rowing scene. The film technicians would digitally replace Josh’s face with Armie’s so that it would appear that they are identical twins. Another film technique used was the switching from one