Friday, November 12, 2010

The Social Network

Anyone who ever tried to follow a member of the cast down a corridor in The West Wing knows that concentration is everything when Aaron Sorkin is responsible for the words. He distilled American politics down into a thousand penetrative conversations. So we could get it.

Since The Social Network is a movie about a computer programmer it is a good job Sorkin is on the scene again. From the opening moments as Mark Zuckerberg spars with a girlfriend in a bar, trying to outwit her into staying with him (like, that ever worked), we discover that this movie is about geeks and nerds but told through witty banter.

The film is the story of Facebook, the brainchild of Zuckerberg when a student at Harvard, the account of the world's youngest billionaire and the court cases with those who felt he had stolen their intellectual property.

It's a great film. Roger Ebert has, as ever, written a cracking review and so those who want to know about actors, directors and the like go there. I just loved the fact that it is an intelligent movie which asks its viewers to be smart and keep up too.

You'll be exhausted by dialogue and delighted that the last few moments are told in text boxes of the 'what happened next' variety to wind it up. And you'll wonder if the outcome of those court cases (which never got to court) were fair. And you might even put a link to your review on Facebook. Let the synergy commence.

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