Review of Aaron Sorkin's FACEBOOK Movie script
So I'm sure you groaned, maybe even shouted in disgust upon hearing news that a movie was being made about Facebook. Ya know, that social networking site your mom and sister are always on? That site YOU and more than 200 million other users spend nearly every waking hour on.
It must have been even more puzzling to hear that Aaron Sorkin, the writer of A Few Good Men and The American President, was paid truck loads of sweaty cash to pen the script for the Facebook movie, entitled The Social Network. But things took an even stranger turn when director David Fincher, known for his groundbreaking films like Fight Club, Zodiac and his most recent Benjamin Button, expressed interest in helming the project. Blogs and tweets everywhere were now peppered with a large amount WTF's, OMG's, and BLT's. Scratch that last one.
Well apparently Sorkin, a self proclaimed computer illiterate, who knew nothing abut Facebook before being brought on, has actually pulled it off! In a script review from ScriptShadow, there's nothing but praise for Sorkin's comedy filled drama.
The Social Network is either a modern tragedy or a modern success story depending on how you look at it. Imagine going from nothing to a billionaire in less than a year. How do you even grasp that kind of success? How do you live a normal life? How do you address the constant lawsuits that eat into your everyday existence? And how do you do this at 22 years old?
And that is where The Social Network should have you hooked! Of course a movie about the adventures of friend requests, and status updates would be a total farce. But the script, which is based off of the book "The Accidental Billionaires", tells the fascinating real life story about the founders of Facebook in a way that will make us view money and success in a completely different light.
... this is a story about two friends - one a computer genius, the other a business expert - who began a website that became the fastest growing phenomenon in internet history. Three years later, one was suing the other for 600 million dollars (or 1/30th of Mark Zuckerberg's worth). It's a story about greed, about obsession, about our belief that all the money in the world can make us happy. But it's also unpredictable, funny, touching, and sad. It gives us that rare glimpse into the improbable world of mega-success.
We'd all like to believe that we'd stay true to our morals in any situation. We'd all like to believe we know who are TRUE friends are. But when there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, that can all go out the window. We can imagine being in that situation, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg lived it!
Sorkin does a great job fleshing out the characters, and helping us sympathize. The most interesting of which is Sean Parker!
Maybe you remember the name "Sean Parker", maybe you don't. Parker is the late-nineties time capsule that blew the music industry wide open, exposing their ridiculous CD markups when he co-founded Napster. When Parker falls into Sorkin's mini-opus, it was like finding some old 8mm film with Jimi Hendrix and Elvis hanging out.
Parker's rag-to-riches-to-rags story is equally as interesting, and it looks as if his character will provide most of the comic relief.
The script is sprinkled with a lot more humor than I expected - to the point where I wondered if it should be classified as a comedy. What's wonderful is that all of it works. Those unoriginal moments you've seen in every comedy spec written in the past year (including my own), where couples are arguing over Facebook-related issues (Girlfriend: "Why does your relationship status say you're single??") Well Sorkin uses them too. The only difference is that it's happening to the inventors of Facebook. And so the unoriginal becomes original, the stuid becomes hilarious.
I am now completely on board with this movie! If you don't mind spoilers, read the full review here. It is well worth the read if you're on the fence on this one! Let us know what ya think!