I finally watched this movie and it was very underwhelming. Nothing in it was bad, but its problem was what wasn't in it rather than what was. Every scene was filmed well, the music was good, and the acting was good (although Jesse getting nominated is questionable since he played the character the same he has every other movie). But the movie just lacks a climax. It feels like a huge build up that simply leads to him screwing his friend (which we knew would happen from the beginning) in a not very dramatic fashion. Not only was there no real climax, but there really weren't any scenes that stood out at any moment, which made the movie feel like it moved forward at one dull pace.
6/10 (which is way off from the 9/10 that all the critics seemed to give it)
I think the key to understanding this film's greatness is in understanding that the film, rather than truly being about the real story behind the making and early development of facebook, or even the thrilling, exaggerated retelling of the conflict between Zuckaberg and his best friend and other associates, acts primarily and predominantly as a tragic love story. That story is told expertly with subtlety and believability and acts as a great twist on the real life events of the affair, the knowledge of which that was accessible to anybody going into the film in the first place. The climax of the story is in one of the final scenes where you see a broken, depressed Zuckerberg obssessively refresh the facebook page of his ex girlfriend, who in all likelihood was the only person presented in the film that he truly cared about, and pondering over whether or not he should "friend her" and try to talk to her, but then deciding not to.
That being said it would also seem that a lot of the people who actually did like this film didn't really get it either.
Originally posted by Boron Dalzier
I think the key to understanding this film's greatness is in understanding that the film, rather than truly being about the real story behind the making and early development of facebook, or even the thrilling, exaggerated retelling of the conflict between Zuckaberg and his best friend and other associates, acts primarily and predominantly as a tragic love story. That story is told expertly with subtlety and believability and acts as a great twist on the real life events of the affair, the knowledge of which that was accessible to anybody going into the film in the first place. The climax of the story is in one of the final scenes where you see a broken, depressed Zuckerberg obssessively refresh the facebook page of his ex girlfriend, who in all likelihood was the only person presented in the film that he truly cared about, and pondering over whether or not he should "friend her" and try to talk to her, but then deciding not to.That being said it would also seem that a lot of the people who actually did like this film didn't really get it either.
What about the people like myself who understood all that stuff, and simply didn't care? I understood that the biggest message was that he seemingly had everything, yet was still alone and wanting that girl to like him, but to me the "climax" being him refreshing a website to see if a girl (who we as the audience barely know) liked him was pretty darn dull.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Maybe thats just cuz you're dead inside.
Nah. The movie was pretty lame in that regard. If someone watches the film for the "love story" portion, they really need to expand their "love story" palette to something other than "shitty love stories" as there are far better ones out there. The acting was decent, but it wasn't memorable. I agree with the 6/10 assessment. I do not understand why this got nominated for any academy awards, much less the 4 or 5 it actually got. This further cements why the academy sucks.
For those of you who liked it: that's cool and I can see why some would like it...it's just not my cup of tea.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I agree with the 6/10 assessment.I do not understand why this got nominated for any academy awards, much less the 4 or 5 it actually got.
This further cements why the academy sucks.
6/10 is probably dead on considering the acting, story and dialogue. ust good enough to be above the middle/average.
Because there's 300+ million Facebook users, this movie appeals to the 'if I don't agree it's the best thing since Q-Tips, I'll be in the out-crowd.'
Agreed. If this flick wins, it won't be the first time a 'meh' film won solely on popularity and not actual film merits. EG Titanic. Though a couple of the awards Titanic won were merited, costume design for one. Director, picture and song? Hell no.
Originally posted by Robtard
6/10 is probably dead on considering the acting, story and dialogue. ust good enough to be above the middle/average.Because there's 300+ million Facebook users, this movie appeals to the 'if I don't agree it's the best thing since Q-Tips, I'll be in the out-crowd.'
It's possible that you might be on to something.
Originally posted by Myth
What about the people like myself who understood all that stuff, and simply didn't care? I understood that the biggest message was that he seemingly had everything, yet was still alone and wanting that girl to like him, but to me the "climax" being him refreshing a website to see if a girl (who we as the audience barely know) liked him was pretty darn dull.
It didn't matter that we didn't really get to know her character; the entire purpose of her character was more the effect she had on Zuckerberg, which by all implications is exactly what we see in his character progression. He wasn't refreshing her page to see if she liked him either, he was refreshing it to see if she'd made any changes to her page; essentially this was the only way he could really keep in touch with her after everything that had happened. The beauty of the climax is the tragic irony of the situation; Mark Zuckerberg creates this website that's founded upon the basic idea of keeping people connected and has made him a billionaire and given him a name that people will recognise and seemingly everything that would have made him happy, and here he is at the end of the film clearly depressed and remorseful despite his wealth and fame, with the website of the mentioned basic premise open before him, but clearly still not any closer to being able to connect with the one person he seemingly loved. Still as distant as ever (also of note and adding to the irony being the fact that she also seemed to be one of his driving motivations in making facebook such a success in the first place; now that he's made it such a success, he's still not any closer to impressing her, not any closer to being back together with her).
Originally posted by Boron Dalzier
Perhaps subtlety just isn't something that everyone gets?To appreciate the tragic love story behind The Social Network is to appreciate the subtlety with which we slowly see Mark Zuckerberg break down as a person and the remorse he felt over their parting.
There was nothing subtle about the story, it was laid out crystal clear to see.
"Tragic love story"? WTF. It's a college kid who lost a girlfriend cos he was an annoying ass. Happens all the time; both of them went on with their lives. This wasn't Romeo and Juliet, dude.
Where did he "break down as a person", slowly or otherwise? He was a tool who basically stole an idea and greatly improved on it and ****ed people over along the way. He didn't change all that much from the being of the film to the end.
Originally posted by Boron Dalzier
It didn't matter that we didn't really get to know her character; the entire purpose of her character was more the effect she had on Zuckerberg, which by all implications is exactly what we see in his character progression. He wasn't refreshing her page to see if she liked him either, he was refreshing it to see if she'd made any changes to her page; essentially this was the only way he could really keep in touch with her after everything that had happened. The beauty of the climax is the tragic irony of the situation; Mark Zuckerberg creates this website that's founded upon the basic idea of keeping people connected and has made him a billionaire and given him a name that people will recognise and seemingly everything that would have made him happy, and here he is at the end of the film clearly depressed and remorseful despite his wealth and fame, with the website of the mentioned basic premise open before him, but clearly still not any closer to being able to connect with the one person he seemingly loved. Still as distant as ever (also of note and adding to the irony being the fact that she also seemed to be one of his driving motivations in making facebook such a success in the first place; now that he's made it such a success, he's still not any closer to impressing her, not any closer to being back together with her).
I can sum that giant post up:
A douche acts douchy and that, logically, scares a girl off. He then subtly stalks her.
This makes the movie, somehow, a love story masterpiece?