I have to disagree. Zuckerberg is not the hero, and the film is definitely not telling us that it was all worthwhile. It's telling us the exact opposite. Consider the very last shot:


I can't think of a clearer way for the film to show us that, even though he got what he wanted, he still isn't really happy. I don't know if this describes the man himself or not, but in the context of the film he isn't laughing all the way to the bank.

I have to disagree. Zuckerberg is not the hero, and the film is definitely not telling us that it was all worthwhile. It's telling us the exact opposite. Consider the very last shot:

Nice analysis, and I arrived at that point too. But the lawyer mentions how this is just a "speed bump." Almost as if it's a minor hiccup, before and after he laughs all the way the bank. And I would buy the girl thing too, but I just don't care much about her because she's in two scenes of the film and we're never told that he really loves or cares that much about here. You could gather, arguably, that he just wants to show off to her. In her exit scene, he asks if she knows what he's built. After he blows him off (like she SHOULD), he immediately tells Eduardo to expand, and specifically puts BU on the list (the school she attends).

That small ending isn't enough for me to really nail down a legitimate character arc or catharsis. So, I agree with you Planet News. The ending is debatable.

Also, I LOVE Dark Knight!!!! But it is VERY different from this film. Showing how easily a good person turns bad is ok. I mean, look what happens to him at the end. His fall from grace in anything but glorified, it's condemned. It's Batman's sense of morality that the film is based on, his sense of right and wrong that drives the heart of the screenplay. Ultimately TDK is about the fight of good vs evil, its classic. It puts a modern spin on it, but the core is there. Social Network is about evil vs evil lol

The struggle is him FIGHTING the joker, not allowing him to seduce him and getting rich with him, like Mark does (as portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg).

A bit, yeah. But while the girl doesn't show up in many scenes, I think it's pretty clear she's the driving force of all that he does. The fact that the film begins with their breakup and ends with him pining for her underlines this pretty emphatically. If he doesn't really love her (and you can make a good case that the character's notion of love is pretty juvenile and underdeveloped), then he certainly wants what she represents to him, which is acceptance.

It's true that the lawyer says it's just a speedbump, but it's a speedbump on the way to financial success, not personal fulfillment. The entire film is about people who can't distinguish between the two, I think.

I actually agree that he might just want to show off to her, but I think that fits in perfectly with the idea that he's not happy. If someone wanted to contact an ex just to shove something in their face, I'd probably think that they were unhappy, petty, and probably not entirely over them.

Interestingly enough, I had a very similar conversation with my dad a month or two ago. He didn't particularly love the film because he, too, didn't feel the movie was really punishing or condemning Zuckerberg, so you're not alone in wondering about that. It's pretty clear on my side of the equtation, but I admit that the movie can be pretty subtle about it, and obviously there's a lot to wade through.



Love that you guys are talking about this; I'm just finishing up an essay about this very topic. It's been 90% done for, literally, about 9 months now, but I think it'll go up soon.

Zuckerberg comes off like an ass in this movie

It's a movie based on real events.

And it's not "about Facebook" in a meaningful sense, it's about its creation and the fighting that went on over it. It's not 2 hours of people checking out each other's Walls or something.

It's really, really silly when people try to dismiss The Social Network with statements like this. If you want to find out what's supposed to be interesting about the company's history, watch the film.

It's a movie based on real events.

And it's not "about Facebook" in a meaningful sense, it's about its creation and the fighting that went on over it. It's not 2 hours of people checking out each other's Walls or something.

It's really, really silly when people try to dismiss The Social Network with statements like this. If you want to find out what's supposed to be interesting about the company's history, watch the film.

This isn't directed at anyone here personally and it isn't even about The Social Network specifically, but I would like to add a few thoughts on the observation I've made many times over the years about certain film watchers: I've noticed time and again that there are some people who just don't like movies with unlikeable main characters. They either cannot or choose not to distinguish between disliking a character and disliking a film.

It baffles me. There are plenty of movies I enjoy that have main characters that are despicable or even downright evil. I find the idea of only watching characters who are nice or "good at heart" or at least redeemable in some sense to be totally boring. To me, it would be like only being able to eat vanilla ice cream and nothing else. Sure, I like ice cream but *blech*. I like a wide variety in films and I like to see all types of characters portrayed.

I enjoy likeable characters, yes, but the idea of disliking a movie because I disliked a character makes no sense to me. A-holes exist in real life, and I never understood some people's inability to separate their dislike for the A-Hole from their appreciation for the film itself.