On the surface, the story of a website's genesis would not seem likely to yield a dramatically compelling movie. But The Social Network has enraptured critics, earning a stellar rating at Rotten Tomatoes — only two reviewers, including the notorious contrarian Armond White, had dissented as of October 1, the film's release date. Scripted by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, NBC's "The West Wing") and directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac), the film is essentially a biopic of Mark Zuckerberg, the brilliant, awkward founder of Facebook who employed what many consider Machiavellian tactics to emerge from Harvard as a Silicon Valley wunderkind. Why is The Social Network so good? (Watch a trailer for The Social Network)
It perfectly encapsulates today's world: "The Social Network is so of-the-moment that the White Stripes counts as a period signifier," says Eric Hynes at The Village Voice. Fincher is able to tease out truths about "the way we live now" by "[retracing], step by step, just how we arrived here." It's destined to become a cultural marker: "Just as our collective memory of Watergate includes Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, so will we look back on Generation Facebook with a vision of Jesse Eisenberg [who stars as Zuckerberg] in a hoodie and shower shoes."
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