I remember when this film was released. Since there were no super-heroes in it we didn't get it in the theaters down in the small community where i lived in Southern Thailand. Therefore, I had to wait a year or so before I got to watch it. I found this film extremely captivating and if it at all represents the actual Mark Zuckerberg, it is easy to understand why he is so successful.
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Although director David Fincher openly admits that this film is definitely a dramatization of actual events, a great deal of the story is based in fact, and therefore really educational in a way. For example, I had no idea that Napster creator Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) had anything to do with the formation of Facebook until this film was released.
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The fast-talking Jesse Eisenberg really impressed me with his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. In some instances he had so much rapid-fire dialogue that it really must have been difficult to memorize the scenes. I say this as someone who has had to memorize lines for films, tv-shows, as well as stage acting (the last being without question the most difficult.)
At the time of this film's DVD release I owned a guesthouse that would play movies at night and this was a relatively popular thing for tourists to do. For these films we would always have English subtitles activated even if the movie was in English so we could accommodate for soft-spoken dialogue without blowing out the sound system and pissing off the neighbors. In this movie there is a scene where Mark is breaking up with his girlfriend in a restaurant (this happens early on in the film) and Jesse Eisenberg is speaking so fast in this scene that the subtitle track actually covered the entire screen at times. It was really quite amusing.
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There is lots of great acting in this movie but one bizarre casting decision (I think) was to have the Winklevoss Twins played by one actor (Armie Hammer.) I would imagine that this introduced some very difficult filming situations. I guess there aren't many actual twins out there to fill the role. I can't think of any.
It has been said that Zuck is presented as being far more ruthless than he actually is in real life and I don't know if we will ever really know. It doesn't much matter to me because I really enjoyed the way that he is presented as an emotionless and arrogant genius in the film. The soundtrack is also wonderful and was composed primarily by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. This resulted in the winning of a Golden Globe.
If you haven't yet seen this film you should do. Forget how you feel about FB and just prepare to be entertained for 90 minutes because even though a lot of it is made up, it is impossible to argue that this creation is one of the most influential aspects of modern society and to see how it all began as a beer-guzzling joke is pretty remarkable.