RED and Social Network reviews

[alobear]

I went for a double bill at the cinema yesterday, taking in RED and The Social Network.

RED had its moments, with Helen Mirren providing most of the best ones, and it was quite fun overall, but nothing special.

The Social Network was very well put together, the script had all the advantages of Aaron Sorkin, and the cast did a very good job with a difficult structure and little action.  However, I found it very hard to get a handle on the protagonist, until I realised the story was being told from the point of view of one of the other characters.  That was why Mark's motivations remained opaque, which made for an odd tone and a puzzling message.  It also irritated me with certain aspects were either unexplained or made little sense, such as how the company actually made its money and why Sean Parker was so influential when he was broke.

Still, it was an interesting film, and well served by an excellent scriptwriter and director, as well as an impressive cast.

Comments

The Social Network - SPOILERS

[coldjwplay.livejournal.com]

I remember signing up to "the facebook"...

It was told from the point of view of another character? I thought it was straightforward third-person. I assume you mean either Eduardo, but I don't think that Sorkin meant for the film to be his story specifically, despite the film's provenance. I do agree that knowing the gist of the story to begin with would have been useful for you.

Facebook didn't make money - but everyone knew that it could, in the future. Because of that, investors threw money at it, knowing they'd get it all back and more down the line.

Sean Parker was influential because he was one of the first people to show, with Napster, that the internet was going to revolutionise the economy because data, the atoms of the internet, are reproducible and transferable for no cost except passive time. (In case you don't know, Napster was a music file-sharing service that was sued into oblivion by the panicking record industry.)

I felt that the film did an excellent job of showing all of its lead characters as unlikeable but sympathetic. That's why the take-home line is "You're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying really hard to be." It's about people's desperation to be insiders, to be exclusive, and the arrogance and nastiness that that brings. Mark starts the film sneering at his girlfriend's inferior university, while he is simultaneously desperate to get access to the Harvard clubs. Both in and out, not knowing where he stands. The Facebook is a microcosm of this conflict. Who's in? Who's out? But the cachet of Harvard's name, of the Ivy League, is steadily diluted throughout the film: at the end, even his ex at the inferior university has an account, and he's on the outside of her page, obsessively peering in. The Winkelvoss twins have been insiders all their lives, and now their outsiders and they can't stand it. Sean Parker is desperate to get inside this new big thing, because he's scarred by having been pushed so hard outside by the record industry. Everybody wants to be an insider.

Re: The Social Network - SPOILERS

[alobear.livejournal.com]

The book is informed mostly by Eduardo, and I felt as if he was the character who was most developed in the film. This was what made it feel odd, because Mark had the most screen time, but remained largely a mystery.

Thanks for the analysis - it makes a lot of sense. I seem to be having a lot of trouble at the moment with figuring out what I think about films and books and appreciating their nuances. I think I need to practise using my brain more...

I understand who Sean Parker is, but I don't understand why restaurant and club staff would fawn all over him, and why he would be able to set up meetings with important investors. And Facebook must have made money at some point, otherwise Mark wouldn't be heralded as the world's youngest billionaire.

Re: The Social Network - SPOILERS

[lareinemisere.livejournal.com]

>And Facebook must have made money at some point, otherwise Mark wouldn't be heralded as the world's youngest billionaire.

Not necessarily. It was once oddly common for internet companies to be sold for implausible sums of money before they'd ever made a cent in profit, because the investors were convinced they would eventually make loads. IIRC, they called it the dot-com boom (later referred to as the dot-com bubble, when it burst).

Not that I have any idea whether or not Facebook has yet made any profit...

Re: The Social Network - SPOILERS

[coldjwplay.livejournal.com]

Like.

Re: The Social Network - SPOILERS

[coldjwplay.livejournal.com]

I can't think how to explain the Sean Parker thing any better than you already understand it... If you meet someone who changed the world and did so by giving you free music, that's cool. Who cares that he's broke? He's cool. And the execs loved him because a man with that kind of vision can do it again. Which, by his actions with Facebook, he did. Sean Parker intuitively understands the internet and what it can do, and that makes him valuable. Also, did I mention, cool. And now extremely wealthy.

As the investors predicted / hoped, Facebook did - eventually - start making money. Note that Mark's only named the world's youngest billionaire in the "Where are they now?" bit at the end. Facebook makes its money today the same way Google does: targeted advertising. Eduardo's nickel-and-dime antics were as much a waste of time as Parker said in the film.