The Social Network

The Social Network, AKA the facebook movie. I’m fairly sure I heard something about it being ‘The movie that defines a generation’. What generation are they referring to? The generation that goes on facebook? I’m fairly sure there is more than one generation on the old bookface. Then, are they referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s generation? What defined them? Their desire to make money? Again, not a concept unique to the twenty first century. I’m suddenly suspicious that it was just a clever catch phrase created to lure suckers like me into watching the movie. Touché, Colombia films marketing. But I digress.

The dialogue in the film is excellent, obviously helped by top notch actors. The dialogue is fast paced (which helps the lack of plot and story-drive), it adds to the believability of the characters (none of which are that likable) and is certainly my favourite aspect of the facebook movie. Trent Reznor does an excellent job with the score, but hey, its Trent Reznor, his name is going to sell movie tickets to angsty nineties Goths and make the movie seem more underground and edgy. All quips aside, his grindey dark tunes help drive the movie forward, by giving the facebook movie its ominous tone (along with low key lighting and lots of icky weather shots) giving the viewer hope that someone may get killed at the end (which doesn’t happen, soz), therefore keeping them in their seats. The evolution of advertising on facebook is also interesting, they didn’t just cash in on ads straight away for a quick million, they very very cleverly bided their time and now give you those terrifying ads that have me convinced Mark Zuckerberg is sneaking around at night jimmying microchips into people’s skulls that transmit their every secret thought, desire and insecurity to facebooks advertising department. The other morning I woke up to ads for back hair removal, anxiety medication and teeth whitening treatment. YEAH FUCK YOU TOO ZUCKERBERG.

My initial impression upon hearing about the facebook movie was “Wow, that sounds boring. A movie about a website.” And as always, I was right. The bare-bones of it, it’s a movie about a few dicks suing some other dicks, with Justin Timberlake dipping his coked up dick into some coked-up teenagers. I did enjoy the end scene. Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly clicking refresh on his ex girlfriends page. Pretty much sums up the core of the facebook experience (privacy, like good Australian skit shows, becoming ‘more of a nineties thing’) lurking exes (adjective and verb). In this way, the facebook movie has a stab at being subversive to facebook. Yet, the facebook movie has obviously grossed more money than anyone reading this will ever see, and viewers will hardly be racing out to delete their facebook accounts. Maybe in that way it is the movie that defines our generation? Acting subversive and radical, up the point of being able to pay our iPhone bills so we can check our facebooks on the tram, train, in bed, whilst sleeping and at funerals. Now I’m going to check my facebook, as you’ve probably checked yours three times whilst reading this.