‘Facebook’ the Saga – 500 MN friends comes with few close enemies
Snip-in: It’s early March of 2011, summer is about to begin and wee hours of Sunday morning (Fourish) - I’m not able to catch-up on sleep for whatever reasons. And I’ve been hearing from many friends, that they are actually missing the Snippers. I have not written for last 4-5 months, just because of the schedule and being occupied with many other things. I’ve been watching movies on DVD, however did not watch any at the theater after Dabangg in September ’10.
‘The Social Network’ is the story behind ‘conceiving’ Facebook. It’s a semi-biographical drama based on the early life of Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Social Networking website. Well honestly I could never imagined so many intricacies would have been involved behind Facebook, as only thing we got to hear for all these years was about a networking site developed by a nerd called Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard, during the early years of new millennium. It’s a drama, but is as exciting and fast as a thriller movie.
The story covers incidences over a few months while the Facebook was taking ‘birth’ (late 2003- early2004). It gives a perspective about Mark’s side of the story wherein there were a few more contributors to Facebook than just Mark. Right from the 1st scene it becomes interesting to see the ‘compelling’ reason behind the very concept of building a social networking site, how an highly complex s/w program devised for Computerized Chess game is used for comparing/ranking the female students at Harward, how Mark was a visionary and didn’t succumb to business model suggested by co-founder Eduardo Saverin (‘Wardo’) to avail small time gains, the lawsuits between mark, Wardo and the Winklevons twins to gain the ownership / larger pie of Facebook, and most intriguingly - another biographical cameo by the ‘Napster’ co-founder ‘Sean Parker’. All these gives a different dimension the way we look at idea generation, incubating those, giving a business perspective to very naïve thoughts, and all this not with the only intention of making quick bucks but pursuing the vision and gaining a far far more from the dream / venture (billions and billions $ than a few hundred thousands).
It’s a drama between all the stake-holders trying to get the ownership of the idea and largely takes place within the confines of home / college labs / offices. But the script and direction adds a lot of thrill and kick to it, as it revolves around human psyche, people’s determination, their grey shaded behaviors and so on. And what strikes most is all these are folks who are in their early 20s and hitting it really big as compared to what most of us must have done at that age.
Lighting effects play a major role in setting the tone of the film, which gives it a little nostalgic (and a bit of period movie) feel.
Snip-out:
To me it was a perfect treat and there’s not much that could be included under this section. The length could have been a tad short, at the same time some actual coverage in terms of Facebook’s increasing popularity (thousands of friends (users)) and the fame that Mark is getting. They have covered the popularity aspect in an indirect / brief way and nicely though.
Snip-O-Meter:
Well, Jesse Eisenberg looks to have lived the epic character of Mark. It’s not about the facial resemblance, but also the very characteristic of a nerd and genuine human being is very well captured in the character. Rest all have done real good justice to their roles. Justin Timberlake’s cameo as Sean Parker is stunning. He seizes the screen for those moments with the charisma. The Harvard (premiere B-school) ‘dilect’ and ambience created is awesome. The Direction, Screenplay, Editing and the Lighting effects are great. It fetched the academy awards for Editing, Screenplay and the Original Score. If you want to get a glimpse of how cracks were surfaced, before even laying out the bricks, while building the ‘Wall’…. then this is worth the ‘Poke’.
