Observations on 'The Social Network' the dilemma of writing the screenplay

In the interest of keeping to the theme of the 'written word translated to screen' I stumbled across an interesting article written on the tricky business of writing the screenplay for 'The Social Network' (I reviewed it earlier this week - check it here).

I decided to pick a the conclusive extracts but please do read the full article here, written by John Truby and let him know if you agree with his assessment. I kind of do because I believed the character of Zuckerberg was an 'ass' the whole way through and the dynamic of keeping an audience engaged on a story about someone so unlikeable (anti-hero) is fascinating. 

Ultimately the facts of this true story and the unpleasant main character mean that The Social Network has one big flaw: there’s no way to end the story. The hero’s moral decline is indisputable early in the second half of the film. And a series of deposition scenes is a far cry from a big courtroom trial where the fight is decided in one last blaze of glory.

Of course Sorkin knows this. He tries to finesse it with his great skill at dialogue. In an attempt to partly redeem Zuckerberg and put final closure to the moral argument of the story, Sorkin has a female lawyer tell Zuckerberg, “You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be.” But it’s a false distinction and it fools no one. The Zuckerberg character portrayed in this film really is an asshole. And no matter how much the real Zuckerberg was forced to pay, I couldn’t help leaving the theater thinking it wasn’t nearly enough.

The Social Network Film Review

Three words: Casting, Conflict & Compelling. The triumvirate of film, oh yes and that is why the film, 'The Social Network' is so well done.



***SPOILERS****
In many ways, it is nothing special but that's precisely it's appeal; it doesn't try hard at all, it allows its characters to be on screen and breathe out their existence and conflicts without flashy film making. The biggest strength is easily the film's cast. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, with all the shades of a genius jerk without knowing that he is the latter half of that description; he displays a somewhat crumpled forehead as if he is constantly confused or just squinting out all the idiocy around him. What I loved was that the film starts with him getting dumped by his girlfriend and rightly so. Then starts the chain of events that leads to the phenomenon that is Facebook. Of course, it was because of girl! That's rather simplistic but it is what gets the ball rolling and there is some serious defiant determination in Zuckerberg - when he is approached by the Winklevoss twins and friend with their new internet idea, as soon as they admit they are from the rowing team, you got the distinct impression that Zuckerberg was going to bring them down, regardless. Underneath it all, he's just an insecure nerd who hates the popular and exclusive, desperate to get into secret clubs like Phoenix, right? So he creates his own exclusive club online (for all of those who remember Facebook starting the year they began uni in 2004 - and I was one of them - will recall how blissfully cool it was that it was only open to universities and not the rest of the world). Zuckerberg even holds a seemingly invisible grudge against his one true friend, Eduardo Saverin, who does get into Phoenix, played brilliantly by Adam Garfield, who I was already impressed by in his performance in 'The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus'. Even Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker of Napster fame, was strong -  not to mention the content was very comedic; watch out for the chicken eating chicken - again, not shown to us but the telling alone had the audience in stitches.