Capsule Review: Social Network

[rinue]

Finally saw most of The Social Network (missed the very beginning). Some funny dialog, but overall I'm not impressed. I think the critics who touted it as an important film that will live on through the years have very poor perspective; I doubt it will stand out or age well. (Why is it everyone since Woodstock is terrified of missing the next generation's Woodstock? Not even Woodstock was Woodstock.) And I didn't really notice the score, which makes me sad; I love Reznor and it's the main reason I watched. Continue to think the real awards sweep last year should have been Inception; it was certainly the most ambitious.

Was a certain amount amused to be watching the week Google+ was all over the news.

Comments

[rinue]

In a sense, it's not as bad as I expected; plenty of funny exchanges, and at least one likable character, although everybody's pretty flat. It's just that the plot is "fairly uninteresting kids make a piece of software I don't like that happens to hit at the right social moment to become very popular, and various people are jerks to each other, and there's litigation, and everybody makes a lot of money unrelated to their talent or jerk level but it's still a ton of money." And I think I'm supposed to feel that yes this is so true and representative of our times, but not really.

Anyway, it's at least tolerably watchable, but I kept waiting for the turning points to hit, or the things to happen, or the big character reveal, but no things just ended. Not really a story there, you know? Which would be fine if I just liked hanging out with these people, but I don't really. Or if it was a great document of this moment, but it isn't - it's not really factually solid. So it's fictionalized, but not anywhere near ENOUGH.

[valancy_jane]

I wondered about that. Plus, there's no distance yet. There doesn't always have to be, but it often helps.