Faces on Film: Facebook, the movie, coming soon
It was only a matter of time before someone made a movie about Facebook.
Although, frankly, I think a movie about the pervy, dark underbelly of
the early days of MySpace (pre MySpace music, which is a great tool)
would be far more interesting. MySpace is creepy, dude, and yet somehow
seductively so. Point in case: I was once propositioned for a threesome
with an Ohio man and his "triple D, super hot girlfriend" as a birthday
present to said lady. Through MySpace. Which I found at once deeply
unsettling and pathetically flattering. But I digress.
David
Fincher, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Se7en and Fight
Club, is now trying his hand at a subject a bit more accessible to
the rest of us...social networking. The flick, now in post production
and set for release in 2010, is called, aptly, The Social Network
and tells the story of the founding of Facebook...and the
ongoing-frenzy that followed. The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg (quietly,
awkwardly brilliant in Adventureland and the Squid and the
Whale,) Rashida Jones and Justin Timberlake (taking over the entire
world one media outlet at a time.) One has to wonder, though, what the
trajectory of drama and intrigue could possibly look like in a film
about the founding of a site where people cultivate online farms and
profess to digitally "like" anything from "the cold side of the pillow"
and, in the case of one particularly bright bulb on my own homepage: "i'd
rather be hurt by the truth than pretected by a lie :(" I'd
personally rather spend my time getting a firmer grasp on the English
language.
According to the film's tag-line however, Facebook is
not all fun, games and infuriating status updates. "You don't get to 500
million friends without making a few enemies," it reads. Sounds
intense, though factually inaccurate: Big Brother Facebook cuts users
off at the 5,000 friend limit.
Seriously, if you try to add a 5,001 "friend" (an experience I can't
personally attest to...I'm still floundering around in the low hundreds
and seem to have reached my own friend limit...real or otherwise)
Facebook steps in and suggests you get rid of some of the online pals
you already have. Basically, the site takes you aside for a little
intervention: is it really possible that you have upwards of 5,000
friends? Unlikely. Get a grip, man. And then they suggest you de-friend
some of the cronies you already have (ouch) before taking on a new
online relationship. It makes one wonder how many of their own friends have cut them
loose in favor of a more attractive candidate for online friendship.
Best not to dwell.
Creative licensing aside, the movie looks
pretty dark. Even Trent Reznor, purveyor of all that is moody and spiky,
has got his finger in this pot. According to Pitchfork, Reznor and longtime
collaborator Atticus Ross have written the soundtrack to the film. So
you know that there's not going to be a whole lot of sweetness, light
and mooing cow avatars in this particular movie. Only time will tell if
this movie will be a triumph or a major flop, but one thing seems
certain: it's release should make for some great status updates. "At
Loews for the premierrrrrr of 'The Social Network'! :) ;) !!***"