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The Social Network (2010 film)

Category: Arts & Culture Key figures: David Fincher (director), Aaron Sorkin (screenplay), Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (score)

Summary

The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. The film dramatizes the founding of Facebook and the subsequent legal disputes among its co-founders.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer in a dual role as the Winklevoss twins. The film is structured around two parallel legal depositions — one filed by Saverin, who was diluted out of the company, and one by the Winklevoss twins, who alleged that Zuckerberg had stolen their idea — interspersed with dramatizations of the events under dispute.

The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 24, 2010, and was released theatrically on October 1, 2010. It was produced on a budget of approximately $40 million and earned $226 million at the worldwide box office, making it a significant commercial success. The score — a brooding, electronic work composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — was released on September 28, 2010.

Critical reception was overwhelmingly positive. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards at the 83rd ceremony (held February 2011), winning three: Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Best Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), and Best Film Editing. It lost Best Picture to The King’s Speech. It also won four Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture — Drama and Best Director.

Significance

The Social Network arrived at a moment when Facebook — founded in 2004 — was becoming a global cultural and commercial force, and its release crystallized the mythology of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship in popular culture: the brilliant, socially awkward founder; the betrayed friend; the shortcuts taken in pursuit of world-changing scale. The film helped define how a generation understood the tech industry and the trade-offs of ambition. Aaron Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue and David Fincher’s cold, precise visual style were widely praised as fitting the story’s themes of speed, obsession, and manipulation. The film influenced subsequent biographical films about technology entrepreneurs and is frequently cited as one of the defining films of the 2010s. The Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross score — which marked the duo’s entry into film composition — became highly influential in the genre of electronic and ambient film music.

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