The Social Network

**May contain spoilers**

It was recently announced that one billion people are on Facebook. That's one seventh of the population of the world! That's a ridiculous number when you consider that Facebook was pretty much born out of a girl breaking up with her geeky boyfriend. The Social Network tells the story of how Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook.

Overall I really enjoyed it. I remember when it came out being a bit skeptical about it, but that was because I didn't realise what it was really about. However, having watched the trailer I decided that I might actually enjoy it, and I did.

The beginning of the film is very easy to relate to. We've all been in that moment when someone breaks up with you and you think about doing something stupid. Some of us have even gone through with that stupid think. For Mark Zuckerberg it involved blogging about his ex and writing a website allowing everyone to compare how attractive every girl at Harvard is. Impressive as this is, it gets him hauled up in front of a disciplinary board. Here we begin to see the interesting elements of Mark's character. I wasn't sure if he was actually understanding that what he did was wrong. He's a very socially awkward guy who feels he deserves credit for highlighting the security issues with Harvard's security. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark brilliantly throughout the film. In response to various events he doesn't display a rational reaction and Eisenberg pulls this off fantastically.

The whole film revolves around two separate lawsuits which have been filed against Mark after Facebook became such a success. One of the cases involves the Winklevoss twins who approach Mark to design a dating website exclusively for Harvard alumni. Instead, he decides to design a similar website, called 'Thefacebook'. The other lawsuit involves his former best friend, Eduardo Saverin who provided most of the financial support for Thefacebook in its early stages.

The majority of the film documents Facebook's unprecedented rise in popularity and the anger of the twins and their business partner when they find out that Zuckerberg 'stole' their idea. When Sean Parker gets involved the story becomes more easy to review. Justin Timberlake plays the character that is written brilliantly. Eduardo has several reservations about Sean's involvement, and Timberlake plays up to these. He comes across as cocky, arrogant and despite this, very impressive. When Eduardo is forced out of the company Sean becomes thoroughly unlikeable. However this is not how it happened in real life. The real Sean Parker doesn't have a problem with Timberlake's portrayal of him, but disapproves of how Eduardo is removed. Sean Parker and Eduardo Saverin are still friends to this day.

The story is written very well by the scriptwriters, and it works fantastically on screen. The relationships between Mark and Eduardo, Mark and Sean, and Eduardo and Sean develop brilliantly as the film goes on, and you find yourself (or maybe just me) emotionally connecting to both Mark and Eduardo.

The main criticism I have of the film is that at various points I found myself wondering how all of the story was actually relevant to the court cases that were happening. The segments of story were linked back eventually, but I often thought that much of what was going on would have been deemed unnecessary in a court case. Never mind though, such is the need to have a good film. If you cut out the unnecessary bits then there would be a very short film without any of the emotional attachment to the characters.

The last scene made me smile quite a lot. Even after all the success of Facebook and the wealth and fame that it has brought to Mark, he still goes back and checks the profile of the girl who dumped him in the first scene. He adds her as a friend and then refreshes the page every so often to see if she had accepted. This is a nice demonstration that, no matter how big you get, and how successful you are, you'll always remember the cause of that success, and the girl who broke your heart.

The Social Network is a good film, but it seems like it is one of those films that should have been made a couple of years in the future. Nevertheless, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who uses Facebook (so about a billion of you then), and it confirms the old idea that the next Bill Gates (or the next Mark Zuckerberg) could be sitting in this room, so to speak.