The movie is not quite perfect. For all the snap and verve of the first opening scene, the fictional character of Erica Albright is too schematic when she serves as a kind of simplified character explanation for Mark to push on further with his Facebook. The film also does not quite have an ending and, while I know the story is not one that requires a resolution (since it does not really have a conventional dramatic arc), there should be more of a sense of closure to it all.
What is most accomplished about the movie, however, is how it cuts away from the line of most conventional factual character studies. Yes, it plays fast and loose with many facts, but it does so to support an unflattering portrait of its protagonist. Rather, in a way, nearly all of the likable characters are around him looking in and trying to make sense of him somehow. That drive of the story is what may also draw in those who do not normally like Jesse Eisenberg as an actor, as the goal of Fincher’s film to make him far from admirable but not unsympathetic.
All of which brings us back to Mark Zuckerberg himself. As the movie portrays him, there is a hint of Asperger’s syndrome as he incessantly imparts his intellectual knowledge well beyond the point of interest or caring of anyone else (which is much quicker than anyone else, as he does so patronizingly, too). And while he made just about everyone proceeded to socially “un-like” him, he focused intently on his own permanent social foothold. He invented Facebook.
Bottom line: Pretty close to brilliance.
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