February 24, 2025
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY REVIEW:
Sony Pictures;
Drama;
$45.99 UHD BD Steelbook;
Rated ‘PG-13’ for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language.
Stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones, John Getz, Joseph Mazzello, Rooney Mara.
Between its ubiquity at the time and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s ascension to Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, it’s hard to deny 2010 was the year of Facebook. So why shouldn’t it have its own movie?
The Social Network combines the talents of two auteurs, though director David Fincher toned down his usual visual flair to accentuate the strengths of the script by Aaron Sorkin, who took home the best adapted screenplay Oscar.
Though in hindsight some patches of dialogue are wearing thin thanks to a few recognizable habits in the way Sorkin constructs his patter, his writing for the most part is so precise in its language and intricate in its plotting that it forces the viewer to pay attention from the opening scene. The film maintains a brisk pace thanks to an ingenious structure that contrasts Zuckerberg’s days at Harvard creating and growing Facebook.com with the depositions for the lawsuits filed years later by a few of the people he may have stepped on along the way in becoming the world’s youngest billionaire. (The inquiry/flashback format would later be used to great effect by Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer.)
But The Social Network isn’t really a story about Facebook. This is the tale of one man’s quest to find acceptance in a world that seemingly wants nothing to do with him.
With its character motivations, and non-linear narrative, it would be easy to label The Social Network a Citizen Kane for the digital age. Now, the filmmaking is nowhere near as groundbreaking relative to its time as what Orson Welles presented 80 years ago, and Kane seems more epic in its details, but both films deal with men who lose something early in the story and spend the rest of the film attempting to change the world to regain it.
And it’s hard to argue Facebook didn’t change the world. To put its influence into perspective, one of the crucial scenes of the film concerns a party to celebrate Facebook growing to 1 million users near the end of 2004. By the time The Social Network hit theaters in October 2010, it passed 500 million. By the end of 2023 it had more than 3 billion users, and there was talk about a potential sequel possibly dealing with Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony about data privacy, misinformation, free speech concerns and the site’s potential role in swaying elections.
In addition, the Winklevoss twins, whose lawsuit claiming Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social website is one of the central plot lines of the film, in 2010 tried to set aside their $65 million settlement, arguing they were entitled to more money by claiming Facebook was undervalued at the time of the original payout. Their effort was denied.
Subscribe HERE to the FREE Media Play News Daily Newsletter!
The new Steelbook edition of The Social Network is a standalone version of the film first released on 4K as part of the Columbia Classics Vol. 2 boxed set in 2021. The 4K presentation, being upscaled from a 2K master, is solid if not remarkable, with most of the image improvements coming from the upgrade to Dolby Vision. Also, the 4K version of the film is technically now an “unrated” cut because Fincher decided to replace one word of dialogue with the ‘R’-rated counterpart that was originally swapped out to get the film a ‘PG-13’ rating.
The only extras on the 4K disc are the film’s original theatrical trailers. The bulk of the set’s supplemental materials are on the two Blu-ray discs that are carried over from the film’s original disc release in 2011.
The first of those Blu-rays contained the film and a pair of insightful commentary tracks. Fincher goes solo in one commentary, while Sorkin splits time with the cast on the second. Nobody ever identifies themselves on the latter one so viewers who don’t recognize their voices will have to figure out who is speaking based on context.
The second Blu-ray contains several making-of featurettes, headlined by the feature-length documentary “How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?” Other featurettes deal with the snappy editing and the distinctive music (which won a Best Original Score Oscar for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). There are also some multi-scene breakdowns to tutor audiences how a scene is constructed from script to screen.
Judging by the behind-the-scenes material the production was a hotbed of high-energy and creative enlightenment. We learn that Fincher called for 99 takes of the opening scene, and the actors were begging for more. Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Zuckerberg, calls making the movie the greatest experience of his professional life to that point. In any case, the final product is an undeniable work of art.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content
