The Social Network
Fast, caustic and superbrainy, this heavily fictionalized biopic of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offers a portrait of the genius as (everyone in the movie calls him this) asshole. Zuckerberg — as written by Aaron Sorkin and incarnated by Jesse Eisenberg, with a single-mindedness so cool as to be lunar — isn't inhuman, exactly. He's more posthuman, a series of calculating algorithms. He is his own computer code — complex and, to most of those who would know him, unfathomable. At 19, the Harvard sophomore is both wise beyond his years and a gawky adolescent. Director David Fincher brings a ruthless briskness to the task of steering this complex story of transcontinental entrepreneurship and overlapping lawsuits. The film is like a video game at warp speed but for the ear-brain coordination instead of the eye-hand. And the rewards for paying attention are exhilarating. The Social Network is a high-IQ movie that gives viewers an IQ high.