I was certainly aware of this film when it came about in 2010 but, for whatever reason, didn’t go out to see it. It went on to win a slew of awards, including three Oscars. Now that I’ve streamed it I must say I don’t get it. Good? Yes. But not that good. Perhaps it got all that credit because it’s about a boy, our boy billionaire, the youngest ever.
Who knows?
The Social Network tells its tale by cutting back and forth between depositions in two law suits – one brought against Zuck by the Winklevoss twins, the other by his business partner, Eduardo Saverin – and the actions that gave rise to them. I didn’t find it all that compelling – though perhaps it’s just me, as I’m still coming out of my annual melancholy phase. So we have something of a Rashomon redux, three versions of the same story. Which one is true?
Do I care?
The fact that these people worked very hard doesn’t compensate for the fact they are rather obnoxious, though the Wikipedia entry does suggest that, in reality, it wasn’t as bad as all that.
The ending struck a false Citizen Kane note, with the Zuck, having settled, attempting to send an email to the young woman who dumped him (for being a jerk) at the beginning of the film. Are we are supposed to conclude that he did it all in compensation for that? I don’t buy it. The thing is, when Welles asked us to believe that Kane’s career was an attempt to compensate for a lost childhood, symbolized by that Rosewood sled burning in the flames, at least Kane had had a lifetime of striving and accomplishment. Not so with Zuckerberg, who got his billion at the beginning of his career. The young people I worked with at MapInfo worked as hard as the Zuck and may well have been as smart, but they didn’t happen to be situated such that the world has been willing to shower them with a billion bucks. Where’s their movie? I’m sorry, but racking up a million users, in that networked world (that is, our world), isn’t worth a billion bucks. And the film is utterly lacking in the kind of irony that could have redeemed it from that valuation.
Charles Foster Kane, needy and driven though he may have been, wrestled with the world to achieve his wealth. Racking up a million users isn’t wrestling with the world; it’s just bringing in the harvest. Worthy, but not worth a two-hour film. What Zuckerberg and Facebook are now facing – the way Facebook is being abused at the expense of civic comity – that’s wrestling. And perhaps one day we’ll get a film about that.