The more you post the less you live. Following the formula of many other movies of it’s kind the movie titled The Social Network tells the origin of the social media icon known to everyone as Facebook. Although very informative the movie followed the tropes of other movies portraying something famous in today’s society. In the sense that the group comes together with an idea that could become something great and ground breaking. As the idea climbs and gains success the main mind behind it in this case Mark Zuckerberg slowly gained more domination over the company in a way betraying his best friend or ex best friend Eduardo Saverin as he is at the end of the movie suing Zuckerberg for all the money he has gotten from Facebook.
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From the start of the movie while very generic in storytelling it puts its own unique spin by having Mark Zuckerberg portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg be introduced as a person who is very intelligent when it comes to computers coding and as the scene shows hacking. As it begins with Zuckerberg being dumped for being more intelligence driven and lacking ironically social skills. Not long after that the evil mastermind hatched a plan by hacking into the school servers to create a site similar to tinder but much more cruel to trash his ex-girlfriend socially.
picture from (https://ew.com/movies/social-network-movie-where-are-they-now/) While simultaneously drinking, blogging about her and the break up, and how he is hacking and creating the site. After being reprimanded for hacking into the accounts of all the female students at his college and creating a site to judge them based on their looks while drunk. He caught the attention of a pair of twins from Harvard known as the Winklevoss’s. They approached him with the idea for a Harvard social media site to connect everybody on campus. He accepted the offer to do it although not long after that meeting he had the idea but as many other people in that kinda situation wanted to think bigger than just Harvard.
The Calm Before the Social Storm
Following the conception of the idea the business representative of the Facebook company Eduardo Saverin also Mark Zuckerberg’s best friend played by Andrew Garfield was fully brought in to basically be the company’s wallet. Which in the long run was a mistake on Saverin’s part because mixing friends with business is always a risky choice to make. As he will learn nearing the end of the film. However, at the moment the generic plot was in the calm and progressive period. The company was gaining ground and gaining fame faster and faster than anyone could have expected. Leading to some of the innovations known today such as relationship status and hiring interns so that there is more processing power and more brains behind the machine instead of just one programmer.
picture from (http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/30/social.network.review.roll/index.html) Which allowed the final stage to any great venture to finally begin. Expanding the name beyond the one college.
The Fall of A Friendship
Then like all great enterprise there comes a point where friendships are tested and fame and fortune get voices of their own. Especially when they meet Sean Parker played by Justin Timberlake he begins to talk about himself and dangle the right carrots in front of Zuckerberg’s nose to begin to drive a wedge between him and Saverin. Beginning with giving the suggestion to shorten the name from The Facebook to Facebook. After that meeting Zuckerberg started to listen to reason less and less and started to listen to the money and the fame more and more. Even after Parker almost ruined the whole project with being caught doing cocaine. But was more focused on how Parker enabled Facebook to go global and allowed the communication functions can be put to their limits and beyond. Even going as far as to keep his best friend Eduardo out of the business discussions even though he is the business director of the company. Which climaxed when Sean and Zuckerberg wrote up new business papers for the financial shares of the company. This is where Eduardo made his mistake. He put blind trust in his friend Zuckerberg and did not think to read the papers he was signing thoroughly to make sure he wasn’t getting conned. Sure enough he was because the papers made him get less than zero percent of the companies financial revenue. Which he comments on in the film that he should have read them more closely and have a lawyer look at them so he actually knew what the papers had said. He fell to one of the risks of going into business with friends he believed his friend would not cheat him out of more money to fill up his own pockets. Which brought full circle to what has been going on as a side bird throughout the entire movie. Which is a trial of Saverin suing Zuckerberg for every penny that he has made from Facebook. Proving the ironic concept that in the process of making a successful social media platform meant to connect people across the world Zuckerberg shut out and betrayed everybody he had in his own social life.
Everyone has a part to play and a role to act
As far as acting is concerned it was pretty standard throughout the course of the film. Nothing really to write home about as each fell into the stereotypes of what kinda movie they were making. Especially when it came to Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg playing the characters of Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin given the two actors have played a multitude of other characters it was surprising seeing how much they acted like the other characters they had portrayed. With Jesse Eisenberg he has played characters such as Daniel Atlas in the Now You See Me series and the iconic super villain Lex Luthor in the films Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice and Justice League. Through out the movie all the characteristics he brought to Lex Luthor were present heavily in this portrayl. The cold nature of Lex but also slightly the cocky nature of Daniel. Showing the specific type of character Eisenberg plays the intelectual who will rather do a million calculations before saying hello while also not shy to brag about how smart he is and how he is the smartest man in the room. With Andrew Garfield it is the same territory he is always playing the more emotional character one bringing conflict inner turmoil instead of confidence to the roles much like his portrayal of Peter Parker/Spider man in The Amazing Spider Man movies. Both actors great at their respective themes and role characteristics as their performances in this film show why they were chosen to play the characters that they have played later in their careers. At the end of the day the movie known as The Social Network while run of the mill in its storytelling brought up good historical points in the origin of Facebook and made for an enjoyable addition to its theme of movies that tell the origins of pop culture phenomena. Especially at the end leaving the message that while it is called a social network it is no excuse to not communicate and be social to the friends you see in real life. As the more you post the less you actually live.