Posts Tagged ‘Rooney Mara’

Frenzy on the Wall: Is The Social Network Fincher’s Best Film?

Monday, October 4th, 2010


I’ve made no secret of my love for David Fincher. Simply put, I think he’s one of the top five living filmmakers, the second best living American filmmaker and I anticipate the openings of each of his films the way someone might await seeing their favorite band at a concert. But is his latest film, The Social Network, his best film?

Even before I saw the most brilliantly constructed trailer of the last few years, I had The Social Network on the top of my list of films I needed to see in 2010. The problem that comes with that kind of anticipation is that it can lead to massive disappointment (see: Panic Room) and so as I sat down Friday afternoon and The Social Network began to unspool, I felt anxious.

Luckily, I had nothing to worry about. The Social Network is easily the best film I’ve seen so far this year and it’s not even close.

I think the most fascinating thing about Fincher’s career has been his ability to adapt to the material he chooses. Very rarely do we find scenes in Fincher’s films that seem over-directed or showy. When the camera does all those twists and turns in Fight Club or there is a super close-up, we never feel like we are taken out of the film. This goes hand in hand with why I think Fincher is so great: his ability to create a tone and mood, finding tension and milking it with every weapon in his arsenal including photography and editing. So while Fight Club had a lot of quick cuts, which kept us on our toes, Zodiac used well-timed cuts to create a sense of foreboding.

The Social Network is almost classic in its tone and mood. We have two separate lawsuits – although they never actually go to court – which makes the film feel a bit like a legal drama, but there’s also the rise to power of a genius which makes it feel perhaps like a Citizen Kane-esque operatic drama.

If I had to find a theme that runs through most of Fincher’s work, it would be alienation. He tends to be drawn to characters that don’t fit in: Morgan Freeman’s Detective Somerset in Se7en; Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Paul Avery in Zodiac; Brad Pitt as both Tyler Durden in Fight Club and Benjamin Button .

In The Social Network, we are presented with a very peculiar outcast in Mark Zuckerberg. What makes Zuckerberg so odd – and so compelling – is that he has a quick wit, lots of intelligence, and a good deal of bravado. Most people would use these gifts – not to mention his genius ability to work with computers – to gather as many friends as possible. I mean, the tools are there for him to be an extroverted and popular kid despite the fact that he’s no Brad Pitt.

But instead, Zuckerberg (as presented in the movie, at least) uses his abilities to cut people down and make them feel bad about themselves so that he could feel better about his life. Yet, the amazing thing is that he’s portrayed as longing to have friends, to have a girlfriend, to have a connection. And I think it’s an interesting perspective on the man who created the largest social networking site of all-time.

I have to say, though, that I didn’t find Zuckerberg to be a villain. Maybe it says a lot about me, but I found myself on his side for most of the film. Sure, he can be resentful and spiteful, but considering he’s a kid who doesn’t know how to deal with people, I can’t really blame him for a lot of what he does. In fact, I can defend every decision he makes throughout the film. I can even defend what he does to his best friend and business partner Eduardo Saverin. (Spoilers ahead)

When Zuckerberg, the brains behind the operation, decides to head out to Silicon Valley to grow the company (which turned out to be the right decision), Eduardo stays in New York instead of moving out to California with Mark. To me, that says that Eduardo didn’t believe in the company the way that Mark did. In any fledgling company, the CFO needs to, you know, oversee the business and make sure it’s running smoothly, that the funds are being used correctly. Eduardo clearly doesn’t think the site will take off the way it ultimately did.

Sure, you could say that Mark shouldn’t have betrayed his best friend in that way, but business is business. And the truth of the matter is, as depicted in the movie, Eduardo’s biggest contribution to the creation of the site was as the money-man. He supplied 19,000 bucks – money that Mark could have gotten from a number of other sources, including the Winklevoss twins. Of course, most of the audience I was with was rooting for Eduardo; when the crawl at the end of the film pops up on screen and informs us that Eduardo got a large settlement, the audience applauded. (End Spoilers)

I think the fact that I wasn’t rooting against Zuckerberg speaks to the film’s power. A lot of people have justly given credit to Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay, but mostly folks have pointed out his fine ear for dialogue. The dialogue is indeed strong, but the most important aspect of Sorkin’s script is the way he has structured the film in a complicated yet coherent way. The first part of the film is set at Harvard as Mark is creating Facebook and the second part of the film starts when Mark meets Sean Parker – the creator of Napster – and becomes enamored with how Parker operates so smoothly.

Meanwhile, there are two settlement hearings that take place after the events in the regular narrative, and those hearings are inter-spliced at key points throughout the film, giving us both a hint of what is to come for the characters and some perspective. It also helps to give Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins a voice that is equally as loud as Zuckerberg’s in the narrative. It was really a genius move on Sorkin’s part and I’d give him the Oscar for Best Screenplay based on that alone.

I haven’t mentioned the acting at all, so let me dedicated an entire paragraph to the masterful performance of Jesse Eisenberg. The whole cast is uniformly excellent – seriously, not a bad turn in the batch – but Eisenberg deserves special recognition for being the most effortlessly compelling protagonist of the year (and maybe the last few years). I say “effortlessly” but I’m sure there was a lot of work involved, it’s just that Eisenberg makes it seem easy. It’s not just the way he delivers Sorkin’s dialogue so naturally, it’s the way his eyes narrow when he’s thinking or the way his lips turn up into a smile when he’s creating FaceMash; more than anything, it’s the way he perks up with confidence when he knows he’s right.

He doesn’t just seem believable, he is believable and real. This is the kind of performance that is so difficult and that doesn’t get any credit because it’s not flashy. I’m sure the Academy will ignore what is, so far, the performance of the year, but I guarantee we’ll all be talking about it for years.

Now, onto the rest of the cast! Justin Timberlake is going to be a movie star, without a doubt. He exudes confidence in most of his scenes as Sean Parker and he would be so easy to detest if he wasn’t so charming; he makes us understand why Zuckerberg falls under his spell. I especially loved his scenes at the end, when he’s finally feeling vulnerable. Andrew Garfield is going to be a movie star too; in fact, he’s going to be Spider-Man. Garfield is certainly the heart of the film, the naïve soul who is destined to get his heartbroken.

We sympathize with him, we want him to be okay and we cheer when he breaks apart Zuckerberg’s laptop. Garfield arguably has the easiest task because the script sets him up as the puppy dog who squeals with delight about having groupies, but Garfield takes it to an interesting place. There is a vulnerability in the way Garfield speaks his lines that is affecting in a different way. And Arnie Hammer (with help from Josh Pence) astounded me as Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. The Winklevi could very easily be portrayed as villains, but the script and Hammer doesn’t allow that to happen; they actually seem like reasonable and bright gentlemen with an emphasis on the word “gentlemen,” as they believe very much in tradition and manners and codes of ethics. Hammer gets the best line in the film – a reference to Karate Kid that made me chuckle – but it’s in the way he delivers his lines as the Winklevoss twins, the way he imbues every line with conviction.

The other actors, from Rooney Mara as the girl who calls Zuckerberg an asshole in the beginning of the film to Rashida Jones who brings things full-circle at the end, are all excellent. John Getz, Brenda Strong, Joseph Mazzello, Max Minghella … everyone does their parts perfectly. There isn’t a single false note and it takes a lot of strong supporting work to be able to allow the leads to shine and everyone should be proud of their work here.

I have to give special mention to the music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross because I don’t usually pay that much attention to the scores of films unless they really strike me, but this is one that I want to buy immediately. I’ve been a big Reznor fan since I was a kid listening to Nine Inch Nails in my room and I always thought, based on his instrumental work, that he’d be a great film composer. Well, I was right, because this score kicked my ass right from the beginning when we see Zuckerberg creating FaceMash cross-cut with a Final Club party. Just masterful.

Jeff Cronenweth’s photography is as great as it usually is. He’s worked with Fincher since Se7en and I think he’s one of the more underrated cinematographers out there. Cronenweth has this one shot in Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo where Robin Williams is running down a circular parking garage and it just blew my mind. Cronenweth is also smart to work with visually talented filmmakers and Fincher knows how to frame a shot that can be hung on a wall and called art.

The Social Network is the best film of the year so far and we’ve got three more months to go, but I feel it’s safe to say that it’ll be somewhere near the top of my ten best list in December. However, where does it rank with other Fincher films? That’s what I’ve been debating ever since I walked out of the movie and I’ve been wrestling with it all weekend.

I don’t think I can put it up there with Zodiac or Se7en yet because I feel like those two films have themes and stories that are timeless and I do worry that The Social Network could be dated in a few years. The theme might be timeless, but facts could emerge that could change our perception of what occurred. There’s still so much we don’t know and that could change.

On the other hand, I think Fight Club is one of the most important films ever made and it’s certainly one of the most important films for me, personally, as a cinema freak; I certainly can’t put The Social Network up there yet. I loved The Curious Case of Benjamin Button more than most people I know, but I suppose I could confidently say that The Social Network is better than that one. So, does that make it the fourth best film Fincher has done? I’m not entirely sure yet, I need to let it marinate a bit more. But if that’s so? Holy shit, that’s amazing. I mean, that’s not a knock on the film at all; if The Social Network, a brilliant film that I might even call a masterpiece, is only the fourth best film Fincher has made, then I don’t think I need to make any more arguments about why he’s the second best living American filmmaker.

Paul Thomas Anderson is still number one…for now.

(Side-note: It’s strange when I hear people call it “the Facebook movie” or folks complaining about the subject matter. Perhaps it’s just me, but the subject matter of a film is usually the least important aspect of a movie. A film could be about sex, which is arguably the most “exciting” and “risqué” topic there is, but that doesn’t automatically make the film riveting. And a film could be about people talking in rooms and it could be absolutely enthralling.

The truth of the matter is that The Social Network is really about people talking in rooms; they could be discussing creating any kind of business and I don’t really understand why people would be put off by the idea of that specific business being a website that most folks check several times a day.)

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Posted in Columns, Forrest, Frenzy On Column, MCN Originals, Movie City News | 10 Comments »

Review – The Social Network (98.75% Spoiler-Free)

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

There are three key components to The Social Network.

First, there is the Aaron Sorkin screenplay, which is about as Aaron Sorkin as Aaron Sorkin gets. The first scene of the film – perhaps the best scene in the film – is textbook A.S. A ping-pong match of lust, hope, hate, power, naïveté, and fear… lots of fear… between our anti-hero, “Mark Zuckerberg,” and The Girl Who Would Cause Facebook.

In that scene, we also get a taste of how Element Two, director David Fincher, is going to play it. Straight. And with the exception of 3 or 4 gorgeously indulgent flourishes, he services the screenplay here, first and last. There has never been a Fincher film like it, really. And it reminds is that with his skill set, he can do anything he wants.

The third element is the actors. And Jesse Eisenberg is the Olivier to Sorkin’s Shakespeare, the Bill Macy to his Mamet. Eisenberg has always been engaging, but he was born to this text, both indulging Sorkin’s detailed rhythms (and much of the great cast of West Wing did) and avoiding the trap of sing songing it. You never catch Eisenberg acting for a second, even though his character, Mark Zuckerberg, often is.

This is a very strong movie. A terrific story told as well as, I would think, it could be told.

But… what is missing is metaphor. And I will admit, I have read as many of the raves as I could find, from Foundas’ embargo breaker to this morning’s Dargis NYT review, and I find no evidence of the universality they feel about the film. I think it’s instructive that most have gone outside of the film itself, to their personal feelings about social networks as well as philosophy about humanity as reflected by a wired world, to make the connections. The film, simply, does not. It doesn’t actually make the slightest effort to do so.

The film is about a boy genius that feels like an outsider within his role as one of the most insider-y institutions on the planet, Harvard. The film, for all the expansion beyond Harvard that occurs, never gets very far outside of the tiny, tiny bubble. Even the blaring disco in San Francisco is reduced down to a two-person scene. Sex occurs in bathroom stalls, impersonally, two people to a stall. Moving to California means a house with 4 people imported from Harvard and 3 visitors who don’t get much attention. When Facebook gets some money and more staff and offices, scene take place in closed rooms with glass walls or with characters who are focused only on what is on their computers.

Is that the Great Irony? Is that the Big Point?

Doesn’t say Big Theme to me.

The reason why Fincher’s career top remains Fight Club is that Chuck Palahniuk gave him a Shakespearian tale of man’s fight against himself from which to fly… and fly he did. Sorkin, who is a true master of language and with very few exceptions, does not go much deeper than the skin, doesn’t give Fincher that kind of big picture to work with here.

For me, the most fascinating element of all of this is that it happened so fast, so recently, and so painlessly. But this isn’t really a part of the film. You can surmise it. But Sorkin, as usual, is all about the characters and not about the wake they create.

And as a character study, this is masterful stuff. Fincher’s lush imagery flattens out the vaudevillian in Sorkin just enough to keep the entire enterprise tethered to terra firma. Sorkin’s characters bring Fincher’s brown just enough helium to float above the dirt. It is a perfect pairing.

As noted before, Eisenberg is perfect. Andrew Garfield takes another difficult role – he has to play the straight man here, but must not ask for too much sympathy or demand more from Zuckerberg than his friendship – and finds just the right notes to make is flawless. Armie Hammer (who came from an even cushier berth than his character here) hits it out of the park as God-like, but myopic twins. It’s a pretty perfect cast from top to bottom. (I like Justin Timberlake in the film… but he has never felt like he isn’t on camera while he’s on camera.)

But the ultimate scene stealers of the film are Douglas Urbanski as Larry Summers and Dakota Johnson’s ass. The rest of Dakota Johnson is actually quite arresting as well… and I don’t mean that as a comment on her looks. She has something really interesting going on in her eyes and a slightly quirky look that portends great things in the future. She stands out in a very interesting way. (And now that I have looked her up on imdb, I get it… she’s Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson’s daughter. Completely makes sense.) I suspect that as years pass and we catch up with The Social Network on cable/satellite/internet, there will be “wow… she was in that?’ early performances for her and Rooney Mara. Anyway, Fincher and Jeff Cronenweth photograph her ass like it was the audience’s first ice cream cone.

I feel like I am on familiar 2010 ground here, a bit. Inception was the other film that I quite liked and also felt was being made into more than it is. In many ways, this film is St Elmo’s Fire for a next generation. After the first scene, Zuckerberg comes out of the bar/restaurant they were in and the crane shot looks almost exactly like the one early in S.E.F. They are both college bars shot romantically. But Fincher has the genius score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross playing. And as we proceed, this film is so much more than S.E.F.

Yet, it is not iconic in the way that S.E.F., unless, perhaps, you are on the outside judging these characters. Virtually every character in the film is, as Obama once said, above the audience’s pay grade, perhaps with the exception of bookend women of clarification, Rooney Mara and Rashida Jones, both of whom will clearly work themselves up into this pay grade.

Of course, St Elmo’s Fire seems like an insulting comparison. But it’s not meant to be. It’s the iconic intimacy of John Hughes’ best work. It’s the way William Goldman brought audiences into his stories. And then you get the more operatic writers, like Shakespeare and Paddy Chayefsky.

It seems to me that the filmmaker who would most perfectly fit this content would be Billy Wilder. This film really wants to be Sunset Blvd. Mark is Norma Desmond… Eduardo is Joe Gillis… Sean Parker is Max. But the thing that makes Sunset Blvd work so brilliantly is that there is clear context. The line between the silent movie past and the talkie future is not blurry. And as here, every character except Norma has conflicting motivations. Norma is driven – in a straight-forward, if psychotic way – by a world in her head that we can glimpse, but only she can really see… just like Mark.

What’s missing, I am afraid, in The Social Network are any real stakes for these characters. The audience responds to a character suggesting that people just move on to chase new ideas and not obsess on Facebook’s success because that character is saying what we, as an audience, are feeling. It’s as though the movie is counting on the ends justifying the means because the ultimate ends for Facebook are in the billions, not the millions. If Facebook was worth only $100 million now, yawn. But now that it’s valued at $25 billion, depth is – allegedly – infused. Not so much for me… though I certainly think there is depth to explore here.

I have seen all kinds of people imprint all kinds of ideas on what they see in this film. And that is a sign of quality work, absolutely. But while I don’t need it spelled out to me in giant block letters, I don’t think that the best movies are Rorschach tests. They may measure you as a person. But it’s a yes/no or multiple choice…not a fill in the blank. “Mark Zuckerberg” uses a computer, but his behavior does not define a generation. He is not Charlie Kane, who lived a life of gusto and real ambition before falling under the weight of his own power. The film might want him to be Bill McKay of The Candidate or Ben Braddock of The Graduate (whom I have compared Tyler Durden to), but unlike those characters, “Mark Zuckerberg” has never believed in anything enough to put himself at risk in a real way.

Perhaps it is my generation and older ones that will see “Mark Zuckerberg” as the next generation they fear… a disconnected, uninspired punk who uses his skills to get something he doesn’t even really appreciate simply to fill the giant gaping void in his ego and never really has to risk anything. Perhaps that unsympathetic view of “Zuckerberg” is what is inspiring the sense of depth… except I don’t think he is that simple and I don’t think, from watching the film, that Fincher or Sorkin thinks he is that simple.

For me, the idea that everyone around him is imprinting their desires on The Guy Who Can Deliver Something Cool and blaming him for not letting them have what they want is the road to a more complex, rewarding film. But the characters who are most on the road, the Winklevosses, are mocked for their behavior by the film, and in the end, whether they get money out of all the inconvenience of these events is of minor impact or importance.

Even the idea that Facebook was inspired by the rejection of a girl doesn’t really get explored enough to be real. It was, the film tells us, a confluence of events and people and choices, all of which conspire to bring a singular event to life. But it doesn’t really explore the randomness of that either. (Interestingly, Se7en did.)

Anyway…

I have spent a lot of words explaining why I don’t think The Social Network is a truly GREAT movie. But I want to write again… it is a tremendous entertainment for adults. It is an interesting story told with a tremendous skill set.

As I was driving away from the screening yesterday (my second look), I was struck with the idea of how movies get rated by critics and that there should be a more expansive scale. There should be a 1-10 star ranking for Fun Junky Films or 1-10 for High Quality Audience Films, or 10 for Seriously Ambitious Films.

The Social Network doesn’t have a Junky bone in its celluloid body. As a High Quality Audience Film, I’d give it a 10. Even Fincher’s forays into “Beautiful Huh?” feel more like a happy palette cleansing than something that should have been cut. It’s pretty perfect. Amongst Seriously Ambitious Films, I give it a 7.5. It’s not that I think it failed to deliver. I just feel as though it wasn’t ambitious enough to merit a higher rank on that scale.

The only people over 30 who I don’t think will enjoy The Social Network are the ones who are just uncomfortable spending any time with “Mark Zuckerberg.” And some will be out there. But they’ll be missing a really,really good movie.

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Posted in MCN Blogs, MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, MCN Weekend Reviews, Movie City News, Movie Review, Reviews, The Hot Blog | 33 Comments »

International Trailer: The Social Network

Friday, September 17th, 2010

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Flashing Back To Rooney Mara As One Of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 Faces To Watch

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Flashing Back To Rooney Mara As One Of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 Faces To Watch

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Anne-T On Rooney Mara’s Pigskin Heritage

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Anne-T On Rooney Mara’s Pigskin Heritage

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Pixie Sticks: It’s Rooney Mara As Lisbeth Salander

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Pixie Sticks: It’s Rooney Mara As Lisbeth Salander

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Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
A has-been divorcee basketball coach  is asked to run the local high school girls basketball team. Down on his luck and unable to do right with his teenage daughter, this is an unexpected chance at redemption.

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