The Social Network

To answer the first question, is the movie of the year? So far, yes. Does it deserve an Academy Award? Well we’ve still got just under two months left before the window to the 83rd Oscars closes, but yes, I for one would put my money on it over films like Inception and How to Train Your Dragon, the former being more of an exercise in logical reasoning than a movie and they aren’t really going to award the best picture to an animated film just yet.

TSN is incredibly fast. It’s like learning how to speed code within the span of a few hours. The characters speak at an amazingly annoying fast pace and action cuts between two ‘presents’ and past so quickly that you feel like you’re sifting through a Facebook album filled with pictures of Mark’s life from college till now. And for a movie essentially about a bunch of nerds duking it out over the internet, college journals, through emails and across deposition meetings, it’s extremely riveting. Most of what’s depicted about Zuckerburg’s character in the movie is supposedly false, so I won't get into details about whether his character is in the right or not - I’m sure Hollywood has lionized and demonized to their heart’s content. But all in all, despite facts, it’s still got a great script and some tight directing.

But what really struck me were the implications of a single line spoken by Justin Timerblake’s character, the founder of Napster, Sean Parker.

“We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the Internet”

That’s why it’s a must watch movie. Because, if nothing else, it’s a sign of things to come. Computers changed the way we work and play, but the internet has fundamentally changed the way we live. Forbes recently published its second list of “68 people out of the 6.8 billion who matter”. On it, Mark Zuckerburg was ranked the 40th most powerful man in the world. He’s 26 years old. And every single person on that list this side of 44 years of age has gotten on it through the internet.

[SPOILER ALERT]

The movie ends with Zuckerburg 'adding' as a friend on Facebook one of the junior associates of the law firm who had been sitting in on one of the depositions. He then proceeds to stare at the screen, constantly refreshing the page, to see if she accepts or rejects his request. And it strikes a chord because after the lights go off and everyone leaves the party or the office, that's the importance we actually do attach to something as trivial as a social networking site called Facebook.

Errata Edit: So he didn't add the lawyer girl but his ex-girlfriend at the end of the movie. The point remains the same, even if the form doesn't.