The Social Network

[Celini]

I felt like Odeon Covent Garden was 110% full (yeah, you read 110%!!!)... I like the cast, the story and the story telling very much; plus a few excellent lines! I laughed a lot, so did most of people around me!

I wouldn't say it's Oscar material though. But having said that I haven't seen any Oscar material movie this year! Have you?

[soonforgotten]

I thought this was a good film in that it told an interesting story, the performances were strong and the direction and dialogue was solid. But film of the year? Not even close. If so, it says a lot about how low standards have fallen. As I said it's a good flick and it's an interesting story, but it's nothing that really engages the audience. There's no emotional involvement beyond 'man, that guy is a real dick'. The actors themselves generally have pretty levelled out roles. None of the characters display an actual range of emotion besides Andrew Garfield, who played his part really well. So it's good, but far from best of film of the year. I enjoyed a lot of the direction, especially that rowing race. On the other hand, I disliked how the time jumps were cut together at first. It was confusing at first when you see him at Uni and then dealing with the two lawsuits, set a year or two on in the blink of an eye. The idea is fine, I just hate how it was edited.

As I said, a good film, but not one I'd really need to see again for any reason. 8/10

[Doris]

We really enjoyed this film. Saw it at Uxbridge and the cinema was about 90% full. Quite a long film, but I think I only noticed 1 person going to the toilet, which i thought was good. I thought it was quite funny in parts and especially sad how the co-founder was treated.

I would like to say to the persons (if you are on this site) that you can't reserve the 11 premier seats for your friends. If they are not with you when you get there, tough luck. I think you were very very selfish !

11 seats??? 1 or 2 is acceptable. That's just taking the pee

We had 2 rows with 13 or 14 seats and the other side 5 or 6 seats. My persoanl opinion, you CAN'T book seats , you want the best seats get there early. My children said not to embarrass them so I left it, however will complain by phone tomorrow to manager. I should have said something to these people, but sometimes the consequences are far worse

[kevinknapman]

Quite, quite brilliant.
This much is clear in the first scene alone. In less than 10 minutes you see the disintegration of a relationship. Simply shot and well acted it's the perfect set-up for the rest of the movie. It's genius however comes from a specific source. Aaron Sorkin and one of the best and most perfect scripts of recent years. How Sorkin (who also has an amusing cameo as an ad executive) gets from inane banter and trivia to relationship break-up in such a short space of time is frankly breathtaking. Thankfully it maintains that level of quality for the rest of the film.

The acting is fantastic across the board. Andrew Garfield continues to impress as Eduardo Saverin, the more emotional role on display (can't wait to see his performance of Tommy in Never Let Me Go and of course Spiderman). Justin Timberlake is suitably cocky and edgy as paranoid Napster founder Sean Parker. Armie Hammer (great name) does a fantastic and impressively subtle job of playing twins with two quite distinct personalities (although technically Josh Pence also plays Tyler Winklevoss). Best of all of course is Jesse Eisenberg who probably gets the toughest job. His Mark Zuckerberg is a mass of contradictions. Socially awkward and introverted but also someone who desires social acceptance. Eisenberg is fascinating to watch from beginning to end.

The direction is restrained and unshowy for the most part. David Fincher returning to a similar style that he used for Zodiac. Only the Henley Regatta scene seems slightly out of place. Fincher's use of tilt-shift his one concession to flashy special effects in the entire movie (it does look fantastic however).

But as I said before it's Sorkin's script that really makes this one of the best films of the year. His trademark snappy dialogue is present and correct (Okay, people don't and will never talk like that in real life but who cares. It's a total pleasure to listen to) His take on Zuckerberg is fascinating too. Although a supporting character says at the end 'every creation myth needs its devil', Sorkin doesn't necessarily seem to b*y into that. Zuckerberg is flawed for sure but no pantomime villain. What Sorkin doesn't do is give you any easy answers for why Zuckerberg is the way he is. There's a fair amount of speculation (the idea that his treatment of both Saverin and the Winklevoss twins was due to jealousy is mentioned several times) but that's it. Some may find that infuriating but I thought it kept things interesting.

Having said all that it's not completely perfect. The female characters are fairly sketchy in comparison to the men. Although Rashida Jones and Rooney Mara do a good job with the little they're given. Mara in particular is fantastic in the opening scene (I still can't see her as Lisbeth Salander though). Also the jumps in time are a little confusing to start with and could have been made a little clearer (It's easy enough to follow once you get passed the initial confusion though). And I guess it could be argued that at the end of the day this is a film about privileged young men getting incredibly rich at the expense of other privileged young men.
Oh and my main gripe. It was too short. I would have been happy for it to have been at least 30 mins longer. Those 2hrs just flew by.
Still despite that this is easily one of the best if not THE best films of the year. A far more deserving Oscar contender than Fincher's previous disappointing film Benjamin Button. If Aaron Sorkin's name isn't on the nominations list for Best Adapted Screenplay there will be no justice.

[hannahbk]

9/10. the end.

[FOXY9MILL]

Loved it! would definitely watch it again and recomend it!
I would also give it a 9/10. I was impressed as it far exceeded my expectations.

[Beate]

I really don't get the hype on this. Maybe it's a film for nerds? (No disrespect to nerds!) I thought the storytelling was confusing, and it was essentially a non-story. Arrogant Harvard kid invents a social networking site that grows bigger than anyone ever anticipated, and people sue him for various things along the line. Girls are continually portrayed as sluts who only ever go out with boys if they are famous for something. It was also never made clear when Facebook evolved from a university site to a worldwide one for everybody - or was that not considered important? Frankly, all this talk about how many members and hits the site got and how much it is or could be worth bored me to tears. I think this story is completely biased and fictitious - even the sreenwriter confessed he wasn't "slavishly following facts". The one thing I learned was how the site got to be named "Facebook" which I always took to be a really stupid title. It also never really touched on the privacy issues of the site. The only thing I was really interested in finding out was never answered - did Erica Albright accept him as a Facebook friend?

7/10

[jpeg]

I really enjoyed this movie. It was well scripted and the court case running alongside the flashbacks worked well.

I was gripped throughout.

10/10

[a_person]

I really don't get the hype on this. Maybe it's a film for nerds? (No disrespect to nerds!) I thought the storytelling was confusing, and it was essentially a non-story. Arrogant Harvard kid invents a social networking site that grows bigger than anyone ever anticipated, and people sue him for various things along the line. Girls are continually portrayed as sluts who only ever go out with boys if they are famous for something. It was also never made clear when Facebook evolved from a university site to a worldwide one for everybody - or was that not considered important? Frankly, all this talk about how many members and hits the site got and how much it is or could be worth bored me to tears. I think this story is completely biased and fictitious - even the sreenwriter confessed he wasn't "slavishly following facts". The one thing I learned was how the site got to be named "Facebook" which I always took to be a really stupid title. It also never really touched on the privacy issues of the site. The only thing I was really interested in finding out was never answered - did Erica Albright accept him as a Facebook friend?

7/10

How come you rated it 7/10? With that sort of a review, I'd give it 4/10!

[Beate]

If I had rated it a 4/10 my review would have been much more scathing! I actually had it down as 6/10 first but then I checked it against my ratings of other movies and it isn't as bad as some of them. The acting is good but ultimately it is a pointless movie with events dramatised that probably weren't all that dramatic in real life.