Facebook is currently blocked in Vietnam. Not having Facebook to distract me, I went and watched...The Social Network? Yeah it doesn't make a lot of sense.
I had reservations going into it, because it seemed like one of those hyped up movies that doesn't really live up to epectations. I really took certain firm assessments that it might be nominated for an Oscar with a huge pinch of salt.
But I can honestly say I was blown away just after the first fifteen minutes of the film. It's debatable how factual the script is. Mark Zuckerberg has declared it as inaccurate but then again if they made a movie that puts me in such a negative light I would say that too. I'm prepared to be convinced that a lot of the script was dramatised and spiced up. Regardless, the script takes a very biased direction and makes Zuckerberg come across as a total a-word that his girlfriend called him at the beginning of the film. And to that end, Jesse Eisenberg makes it impossible to really like Zuckerberg. You marvel at how incredibly intelligent this guy is and how great he is at what he does, but it's really hard to relate to him. In this case, it's actually a good thing because then you realise the incredible irony of the fact that the guy who invented Facebook ended up alienating his real life relationships. It's also a scary reflection of how we, as Facebook users, now are moving more and more of our social life online.
In fact, it's kind of hard to like any of the characters in this movie. The Winklevoss twins are snobs and I really got the impression they are suing Zuckerberg because they can. Eduardo Saverin is a little easier to relate to until you remember this was based on a book based on his own accounts of the founding of Facebook; then you start to wonder how biased the script really was. But as biased as it undoubted was, it somehow still manages to leave it to the audience to decide whether Zuckerberg really deserved being in that litigation hell and whether he really commited IP theft and cheated Saverin. It doesn't make the Zuckerberg in the movie any easier to like, but it does put a kind of distance between the characters and the audience and allow you to look at it from a less biased point of view.
I have to say something that jumps out from this movie is the portrayal of women as play things but considering the whole premise of Facebook being born out of a site rating girls, it's pretty obvious that's the attitude it would take. Unlike some vampire series, they're not portraying the sexism in a positive right.
Is it Oscar material? My first instinct (still) is to say that it doesn't seem to be the kind of movie to win and Oscar as far as recent wins go. But then again, with 10 nominees this year still, it might still get a nomination. It did win at the Golden Globes so it's not impossible. Personally I would love to see it nominated, as well as a nomination for Jesse Eisenberg. But Colin Firth totally deserves that Best Actor Oscar. Seriously, it's about time.
In other news, I did manage to find a way to get onto Facebook that doesn't involve installing stuff on my computer that will fill it with spyware.