Muzman on 4/10/2011 at 15:02

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There's no thread about this. All the talk is buried, ironically, in the megathread trend (kinda an offshoot of the rapid fire, short paragraph communication that social networking ushered in). So I'm making one because, being fittingly late to the party (someone somewhere probably said "I woulda facebooked you to come see it, but..."), I've just seen it and found it really fascinating.

What's most fascinating is how vague it is and the myriad of quite certain reactions it generates. I don't think I've read two critics that described it in the same way or felt the same way about the characters. The Winkelvoss/Narenda are the heroes--No,they're entitled rich assholes. Zuckerberg is a vindictive thief--Zuckerberg is kinda just driven and pitiable . 'Uardo is the only sympathetic character--Uardo is yesterday's man and more self centred than anyone (he's not his only friend, geez). And some people just hate everyone except maybe Erica.
It's a film about isolation and maladjustment. No it's a film about poisonous male competition. No, Gen Y's terrifying cutthroat social structures No, it's about class and the old Ivy League connections versus pure market freedom and creativity. Or all of the above.

It's not obviously a Rashomon kind of scenario either, but there are several pivotal acts in the film that just aren't dealt with specifically at all and sometimes it's like people didn't notice how much inferring they were asked to do. Did he take the Harvard Connect idea or was his mind most of the way there already? Did he just string them along to eliminate any competition? (that one's a bit harder to be indecisive about, admittedly) Why did Eduardo get bought out? Was Parker trying to get rid of him? Was Mark mad about the account thing or was it timing and company direction as much as anything else?
Even though everyone's got a fairly firm take on it, usually, it's really something of a mystery. I kinda wonder if, since this was popular, people might go back and try to watch Zodiac now and remember that it's not a serial killer movie as we usually think of them, but more concerned with piecing together uncertain information to some extent too.

There's lots of other stuff thrown at the film too. That its misogynist, or anti geek, or even anti youth. It's a hatchet job on Zuckerberg. And so on. I never got any of that from it at all. It's probably one of the most favourable representations of geeks that I can think of, whilst still being realistic. The "hacking" is relatively simple as well as being accurate. It's not that he broke into some fantastic system and made a mess. It was, dare I say it, social hacking that brought the system down (indeed they could have underlined that particular distinction even more as it's very important). I even found Zuckerberg quite sympathetic, even though he sometimes says and does unpleasant things. Huge credit to the acting there.

So anyway, is it a classic in the making? Has it stuck with anyone these many months? I have a feeling it may with me at least.

june gloom on 4/10/2011 at 18:57

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I have plans to sit down and watch this movie, despite Jesse Eisenberg being in it (I just want to punch him in the face, just once, just punch him in his stupid derpy "I'm sorry what are the rules" fucking face and maybe I'll stop hating him after but probably not.) I don't watch a lot of movies these days, though, so it'll probably have to wait until after I'm off the job.

Shug on 4/10/2011 at 23:00

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I decided it was a great movie as soon as they ran that scene without making shit up. It was a very slick movie, and the best part is that it was probably flattering to Zuckerberg :cool:

Smiling on 7/10/2011 at 10:48

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Imagine if it was REAL?

Forever420 on 7/10/2011 at 18:16

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Isn't the Zuckerburg lik even more of huge dick in realitay?