On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius
Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a
new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm
room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in
communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark
Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this
entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.
Every age has its visionaries who leave, in the wake of their genius, a
changed world--but rarely without a battle over exactly what happened and
who was there at the moment of creation. "The Social Network" explores the
moment at which Facebook was invented--through the warring perspectives of
the super-smart young men who each claimed to be there at its inception.
The movie moves from the halls of Harvard to the cubicles of Palo Alto to
capture the heady early days of a culture-changing phenomenon in the
making--and the way it both pulled a group of young revolutionaries
together and then split them apart. In the midst of the chaos are Mark
Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the brilliant Harvard student who conceived a
Web site; Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), once Zuckerberg's close
friend, who provided the seed money for the fledgling company; Napster
founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who brought Facebook to Silicon
Valley's venture capitalists; and the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and
Josh Pence), the Harvard classmates who asserted that Zuckerberg stole
their idea and then sued him for ownership of it. Each has his own
narrative, his own version of the Facebook story in this multi-level
portrait of 21st Century success--both the youthful fantasy of it and its
finite realities as well.
As told through flashbacks via deposition hearings for two concurrent
lawsuits, the development and early days of the social networking website
Facebook is presented. Harvard students 'Mark Zuckerberg' (qv) and Eduardo
Saverin - officially listed as the co-founders of the website - were once
best friends. Based on an on-line blog about his ex-girlfriend and a site
he developed allowing its users to rate the hotness factor of girls on
campus, Zuckerberg, who exhibited a streak of arrogance, was asked by
fellow Harvardites, wealthy twins 'Cameron Winklevoss' (qv) and
'Tyler Winklevoss' (qv), and their friend Divya Narendra, to enter into an
agreement to develop a social networking website specifically for Harvard
students, the attraction for people to visit it being its exclusivity
solely to Harvard students. Zuckerberg agreed. Zuckerberg, with financing
from his friend Saverin, decided instead to develop his own website without
telling the "Winklevi" (as he calls the twins) and Narenda. Zuckerberg's
assertion was that he never used a line of code provided by the three in
his work. As "thefacebook" as it was then called began to blossom, the
twins and Narenda had to figure out what to do to regain what they believed
their intellectual property without having to sue, since that's not what
gentlemanly Harvardites do. As the site was brought to more and more
university campuses, Zuckerberg and Saverin began to have a difference of
opinion: Saverin wanted to sell ad space to generate revenue (as he had
been the website's sole financier and he had profit mentality based on
being an economics major), while Zuckerberg, never one interested in money,
didn't want to go that route as the ads would make the site lose its "cool"
factor, which made it popular. The site attracted the attention of the
founder of Napster, Sean Parker, whose own dot com life had its spectacular
ups and spectacular downs. As Parker ingratiated himself into Facebook's
life (much to Saverin's chagrin) and as Zuckerberg began increasingly to
side with Parker, Saverin slowly began to be phased out of both
Zuckerberg's personal and professional life.
Not very good at expressing himself in person, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse
Eisenberg) first alienates himself from his girlfriend, who feels
conversing with him is like working the 'stairmaster', while taking strong
exception to his condescending remarks towards her. He and his buddy,
Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), plagiarize a proposed networking website
by fellow students - the wealthy Winklevoss twins - exclusively for
Harvadites - re-naming it 'The Facebook'. Both then are approached by
Napster-fame Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), and upon his advise, 'The' is
removed - giving birth to the now-revolutionary 'Facebook' - that can be
accessed by anyone worldwide - not just a few exclusive campuses. But his
competitiveness, inability to communicate, and the urge to be number one,
will soon result in in two lawsuits - one from the Winklevoss twins - and
the second from none other than Eduardo himself.
