I attended the world premiere of The Social Network yesterday evening to kick off the New York Film Festival, and while I had reservations about the movie, I was still admittedly excited. After the movie finished, I heard one of the loudest applauses I have heard in a while. The writing was impeccably sharp, hilariously funny at times, and the movie was probably the best I have seen all year. Yes, there was a scene where Mark Zuckerberg got his business cards that said, “I’m CEO, Bitch!”, and no, Justin Timberlake didn’t suck — he gave an incredible performance. But Jesse Eisenberg. Man, that kid completely encapsulated Mark Zuckerberg’s persona and identity complete with quirks, speech patterns, and even twitches. Every character was thoroughly enjoyable and memorable; the plot, while obviously predictable, was brilliantly sliced up to run concurrently with the legal drama surrounding the Facebook CEO and his company. Every scene had a purpose, and every scene had you drawn in. For a movie we all panned from the beginning as soon as we heard about it, it turned out to be one of the best viewings that I have been to.
