Limetown

Creators: Zak Akers and Skip Bronkie
Starring: Jessica Biel, Stanley Tucci, Sherri Saum, Omar Elba, Alessandro Juliani, Louis Ferreira, Marlee Matlin, Sheryl Lee, Janet Kidder, Kandyse McClure, John Beasley, Hiro Kanagawa, Kelly Jenrette, Vera Frederickson
Release Date: 2019

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

There's a scene that comes late in Facebook Watch's thriller series Limetown where an actress is called upon to play a character who's acting. You know those scenes. A performance within a performance, in this case with her character withholding information someone else doesn't have, but the audience does. And it's a guilty, self conscious performance. Not from the actress, but the character, which is how it should be since characters are rarely capable of believable acting.

The performer doing it is Jessica Biel, who we're learning is very much an excellent actress, more so since finding her lane in dark, psychological TV dramas like 2018's The Sinner, which earned her an Emmy nomination. Since the talent was always there, even if the quality of projects weren't, she started developing her own and hasn't looked back, with viewers reaping the benefits. That series centered around a giant mystery many doubted could be satisfactorily paid off, until it was, in a revelatory gut punch of an episode that ranks alongside the most exciting hours of dramatic television in years.

Limetown is similarly built around a mystery, albeit one larger in scope, with far-reaching consequences familiar to anyone who listened to creators Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie's 2015 podcast on which it's based. A podcast that many, in a neat War of the Worlds callback, actually believed to be based on actual events. It isn't, but given the premise, it's not hard to understand why, as podcaster Lia Haddock attempts to unravel the story behind the mysterious disappearance of 326 people at a neuroscience research facility in Tennessee in 2003. The scenario feels like something that could have happened and fell through the cracks, and benefits by having a "host" that's the protagonist of her own story, nicely setting up a screen adaptation where the lead will have to do much more than sit behind a microphone talking about dates, details and evidence.

The series is both at an advantage and disadvantage in having to show rather than tell everything, since what's shown could easily fall short of our imaginations. Then again, so can anything. Those who haven't listened to the podcast won't be lost and have the added benefit of a clean slate, while the many that did will find it remains faithful to and improves upon it in welcome ways. But the big takeaway is that it's riskier, specifically in regards to the actions of its central character, a complex, polarizing female anti-hero sure to split audiences. And much like The Sinner, Biel takes her on a dark journey toward the truth, culminating in a season finale that lays all its cards on the table to reveal an awful lot of answers, even if our protagonist proves emotionally unequipped to handle them.

Lia Haddock (Biel) grew up in a household where she got used to tuning out the noise, escaping to her room with a tape recorder to avoid the sounds of her parents fighting. But she soon found a captive audience in her uncle, Emile (Stanley Tucci), a quite, reserved man who would often stand in as Lia's interview subject, encouraging her to use her imagination in the wildest ways possible. That is until one day Emile left for a mystery trip and never returned, forcing Lia to grow up without her beloved uncle. And whatever scenario her childhood imagination conjured up about his whereabouts couldn't ever come close to matching the real story that would occur in a place called Limetown in 2003.

Now an investigative reporter and APR (American Public Radio) podcast host, new witnesses and evidence have only heightened Lia's determination in finding out what happened to her uncle and the other residents who mysteriously vanished from what was part utopian village, part scientific research lab. Something big was happening and at the center of it all was their controversial cult-like leader, Dr. Oskar Totem (Alessandro Juliani), who was literally burned at the stake in a town of his own creation.

With pressure mounting from her editor, Gina (Sherri Saum) to can the story if she can't find any leads, Lia's given a hapless partner in Mark (Omar Elba), who tries keep her honest and on task as surviving Limetown residents begin emerging from the shadows over a decade after disappearing. Now they want to talk. Sort of. And with conditions. But doing so puts their lives and Lia's in immediate danger, each interview bringing her dangerously close to the truth of what happened. Even if the real question just may be how far she'll willing to go to get it.  

Broken into 10 half-hour episodes all directed by Rebecca Thomas, the format seamlessly synchronizes with a story that needs to gradually unspool information, yet do it at a fairly rapid pace, one witness and clue at a time. When alternating between Lia's present-day interviews with these people and flashbacks of their time in the village, the pieces come together. And many of the town-set scenes and the subjects' explanations of them end up being an acting showcase for supporting players such as Kelly Jenrette, Louis Ferreira, John Beasley, and Marlee Matlin, each of whom are afforded the opportunity to portray two variations on their characters in different timelines.

Those doubting whether the "world" of Limetown so thoroughly and realistically detailed in the podcast could translate to the screen, it does, as the production team succeeds in not only making it look and feel like a habitable (if appropriately cold and sterile) town, but a place where its subjects feel comfortable enough to stay, while still being frightened to leave. A somewhat infamous episode on the podcast, "Napoleon," is memorably adapted in the fourth episode, exploring the full scope of the Black Mirror-like experiment being conducted, with all its moral and social implications. This only grows in complexity as the series marches on, lending the town's adopted catchphrase of "I Have Heard The Future" a far more sinister and complicated undercurrent than its pro-technology optimism seems to preach.

Ultimately, this is Lia's story, or rather it becomes that when the podcaster's obsession starts to reveal more about her own emotional trauma stemming from her uncle's disappearance than the overarching Limetown mystery. They're not exactly one in the same. Who Lia is at her core becomes the biggest and most rewarding deviation from the podcast, as she evolves into someone who may not be worth rooting for anymore, manipulating and blackmailing to get to the truth regardless of how many more die in the process.

Lia's abject denial in the face of this gets scary enough that we eventually understand the true purpose of the goofy Mark character beyond the writers' need to give her someone to bounce theories off and provide comic relief. He's there to keep her sane, providing a rational moral compass as it becomes clearer hers is breaking. We don't fully grasp the extent of Lia's obsession until the final few episodes which find her going off the deep end in ways that are crazily unsettling. Better still is the argument that this proves she truly was the only person capable of making the sacrifices necessary to see this investigation through to its end.

An even stronger case can be made that Biel is the ideal choice to play Lia, completely owning this complex headcase with steely, unwavering determination. It helps that few actresses have a speaking voice as strong or authoritative, lending complete credibility to the podcasting scenes,  never letting us doubt this woman could spend a career behind the mic hooking listeners. But it's Biel's work in the interview scenes that paradoxically convey Lia's tremendous fear of her survivor subjects and whoever may still control them and the reporter's seemingly unshakeable commitment to getting her answers regardless of it.

With her bob haircut frequently buried under a hoodie or knit hat, wearing baggy clothes and looking as if she hasn't slept for days, Lia initially seems at surface level to be an entirely desexualized character. That is until we realize, in jarring ways, this isn't the case at all and her desires provide as much of an outlet as her work. She's a lesbian, even if that labeling seems pointless in the face of everything else Lia's carrying around, which the actress reveals to us in carefully modulated doses throughout. Like her troubled relationship with her estranged mother (played by Laura Palmer herself, Sheryl Lee). It's a high-wire, anxiety-ridden performance that perfectly compliments Stanley Tucci's calming, detached presence in the flashbacks opposite a young, impressionable Lia. The true measure of that impact is felt in the present-day scenes every time her adult counterpart hits a wall in the investigation and a depressing sense of hopelessness washes over Biel's face. She doesn't have to say anything. We get it.

The finale ("Answers") delivers all the unsettling revelations viewers have been waiting on, while supplying literal clock-ticking suspense when Lia comes face-to-face with her most important witness, an ex Limetown administrator played with terrifying matter-of-factness by Janet Kidder. It's basically a clinic on how skilled people can be at completely compartmentalizing whatever they wish, regardless of the consequences. The shock comes not so much in hearing about what caused the mess that is Limetown, but seeing it depicted on screen in painstaking, almost over-analytic detail from the perspective of someone incapable of framing it any other way.

Closing on a cliffhanger in the strictest sense, it's crisp, efficient storytelling that does something unusual in provoking a strong emotional response by bombarding us with cold, hard facts. That happened, then this happened, then that happened. We most commiserate with Lia during this reveal, perhaps lending justification to her mindset, while at the same time giving us pause as to whether she's now employing similarly sociopathic methods in her own quest for truth. You can't help but consider that while Limetown's story is entirely fictional, its timely context strikes a nerve that hits uncomfortably close to home.

Five Favorite Scenes: The Social Network

As I keep digging into The Social Network Blu-ray (so how about that weird packaging and the brilliantly bizarre title menu?) I've come to the conclusion that if it wins Best Picture that's great, but if it doesn't, well then, that's fine too. The Academy has impressively avoided rewarding the most deserving film for the past 83 years so why start now? No validation is necessary here because this is far and away, hands down the best film of this past year or any other recent one and nothing even comes remotely close. Oscar or not. It's best just to celebrate the achievement on its own terms and remind oneself that Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture. See? That feels better already. As we all know, losing might actually be the best thing for it. For all the controversy surrounding the truthfulness of the movie I think it says a lot about Time's "Person of the Year" Mark Zuckerberg for publicly being a good sport and taking this bullet like a man for the sake of his company. Aaron Sorkin's script loosely incorporates real facts into a semi-fictional work so damning it makes Oliver Stone's W. look like a tribute documentary and it wouldn't have taken but a phone call to his lawyers for Zuckerberg to stop this project altogether (or at least prevented the use of his name and Facebook's trademarks). But he didn't. Give him credit for being seemingly one of the few to actually grasp this is meant for entertainment. He had to be slandered and dragged through the mud for the film to work as well as it does.

Back in October, I attempted a somewhat objective assessment of the film knowing my time to rant and rave about its greatness would get here soon enough. So now it's here. Director David Fincher has gone on the record humbly insisting his film isn't as "important" as Zodiac and if we're going strictly by their topics, he's right.  Only movies are rarely about their actual topics. Such is the case with The Social Network, a film no one said could be made, based on a topic no one wanted to see explored on screen. The level of difficulty here was insurmountable. I'd say in terms of actual execution this feels more important than anything he's done so far. So, how did Sorkin and Fincher ever make a movie about Facebook? Well, for starters, they didn't. Ranked in non-chronological order below are my five favorite scenes/moments in the film, along with accompanying thoughts. Obviously, SPOILERS follow.

5. MEET SEAN PARKER 

This brief, but memorable scene toward the middle portion of the picture when the action moves to the West Coast marks the first onscreen appearance of Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker. It also marks the first instance of applause erupting from the theater I saw it in (the second: the reveal of Mark Zuckerberg's "Ardsley Athletics" T-Shirt). Has there ever been a better character introduction? If I could pick one scene that exemplifies the strength of Sorkin's writing it would probably be this brief sequence. Even over the "Did I adequately answer your condescending question?" lawsuit deposition scenes. A strange statement, but I just love the way this whole exchange unfolds and doesn't take the predictable route you'd expect given the situation.

It's reasonable that Parker would know every little detail about Amy (Dakota Johnson) from Stanford because he's Sean Parker and he does his research. So there's a glimpse of actual common sense in a movie script. Yet somehow Sorkin writes the scene in such a way that she still seems right in step with him and doesn't come across as an airhead for not knowing who he is, or worse, just a slutty party girl who woke up as his latest conquest. Of course, he finds out about "Thefacebook" through someone else, which is typical, and sets the stage for his leech-like behavior later as a charismatic opportunist who sees his opening and takes it. It's easy to see how Zuckerberg fell under his spell and bought what he was selling and why the purely idealistic Eduardo would hate his guts. The more times I watch the film the better Timberlake's performance seems, dropping subtle clues that the likable but flawed Parker was destined all along to make that pathetic police station phone call to Zuckerberg at the end of the film because that's what always happens with him. We get our first glimpse of that here.

4. HARVARD CODE OF CONDUCT

One of the film's more exciting, overlooked aspects was being given full access to Harvard University without really being given access to Harvard, a setting we've really never seen fully exploited on screen before (let's not count 2001's Harvard Man). Fincher changes that, miraculously giving us a very specific sense of time and place without ever even filming at the actual location (Fincher was forced to use Wheelock College as a stand-in) and it's a feeling especially present in the opening campus scenes. The two self-professed "gentlemen of Harvard" who best exemplify this world and our preconceived notions of it are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, twin rowers who find their idea for a campus social networking site hijacked by Mark Zuckerberg. Supposedly the real twins were thrilled at their depiction in the film, which is hilarious on too many levels to list. Then again, everything involving the Winklevi is hilarious as played by Armie Hammer in the best depiction of preppy entitlement ever put to screen.

I like how Sorkin doesn't write them as villains or bullies, but hard-working guys who had an idea that really could have been stolen out from under them. And they've got a strong case, which leads to their meeting with clueless, hysterically patronizing Harvard President Larry Summers (Douglas Urbanski) in which they futilely attempt to convince him that Zuckerberg's in violation of Harvard's student "Code of Conduct." Their allegations sound as ridiculous to him as the idea of making a movie about them seemed to us. You could compile another separate list of the twins' greatest moments ("I'm 6'5, 220 and there's two of me!") but this scene best exemplifies how the actor immerses himself in two very different and distinct personalities. As dark and nasty as the film gets at times, Hammer insures that it's also a comedy.

3. RICH MAN

Leave it up to Fincher to somehow find the one Beatles song that hasn't been played out. In a career packed with memorable musical moments he always seems to pick just the right song and put it in the perfect place for maximum effect, but he outdoes himself here. You could argue that with Reznor and Ross' haunting score the entire picture is a musical moment unto itself (their brilliantly twisted version of "In The Hall of the Mountain King" during the twins' Henley Royal Regatta rowing race is obviously one of many highlights) but what else but the under-appreciated 1967 Beatles B-Side "Baby, You're A Rich Man" could possibly wrap up the conundrum that is Mark Zuckerberg, or at least the fictional version of him presented here.

The "likability" of the character, and his obsessive desire to be popular, is something that's returned to many times as we get the unofficial closer to his conversation with Erica at the bar, except this time in a conference room with attorney Marylin Delpy (Rashida Jones, getting to deliver that unforgettable final line).  He might end up as a billionaire but this Zuckerberg never cared about money at all which might be his only link to the real-life counterpart, making the ending song choice especially ironic. Sitting alone at the computer, pathetically refreshing the page to see if Erica accepts his friend request is also the least pathetic and most understandable choice Zuckerberg makes in the film, confirming the trace of humanity we suspected he had throughout.

2. THE BAR 

Supposedly, Fincher filmed 99 takes of this opening scene in the bar to knock all the acting out the two actors, which kind of makes sense when you consider they're delivering Sorkin's dialogue. Anyone who watched The West Wing or any of his other TV or film projects knows how wordy it is and how fast it needs to come out. If it it doesn't it can really sound like someone's reading from a script, which you obviously never want. The best thing about Eisenberg's performance is how he almost invisibly implies on his face all these emotions that his character seems incapable of even expressing to anyone.

As Erica, Rooney Mara has an even tougher job here, having to sell that she would even like and date this guy to begin with, then by the end of a single 8 minute conversation be believably fed up enough with his arrogant antics to just walk. She knows his game and won't stand for it, making all the misogynistic accusations leveled against the picture seem ridiculous, especially considering the women always seem much smarter than the guys throughout the film (save Eduardo's psycho girlfriend). With minimal screen time Mara makes us believe that letting Erica go is a mistake Zuckerberg won't ever be able to live down. When we get to the final scene the big revelation isn't that he built a billion dollar company to impress her, but that he believes giving it all up for another chance would be worth it. The scariest part: He's right.


1. EDUARDO SAVERIN'S MELTDOWN

Oh, that "Facebook movie." So cold, cynical, detached and unemotional. Such unlikable characters. Speaks to the mind, not the heart. No one has any FEELINGS. And that's only the second biggest misconception about the film. The biggest is one that Fincher's addressed in many interviews and involves the perception of the picture as some kind of cinematic landmark that speaks to a generation (one that ironically refused to support the movie and probably cost it a few Oscars). I expressed my own doubts on that when I reviewed it and see his point since it usually takes decades to make such a determine any film's value as a cultural touchstone. It also burdens the movie with added pressure it doesn't even need because it's important enough just as what it is: A perfectly directed, written and acted coming-of-age drama about the destruction of a friendship. And it all builds to this. 

Eduardo enters Facebook headquarters a boy but walks out a man after realizing he had the screws put to him by his best friend And in a movie packed with endlessly quotable lines, the criminally un-nominated Andrew Garfield gets to deliver its best to Timberlake's befuddled Parker, a verbal blow anyone caught in a volatile confrontation wished they could come up with in the heat of the moment. After being used and stepped on (though it's a credit to Garfield's performance it never exactly seems that way) Eduardo finally learns the hard way how to stand up for himself becoming the emotional center of what's otherwise been described as the most unemotional of films. He's our way in. Even though its characters talk endlessly, the film wisely holds a lot back in terms of what they're actually thinking and feeling until here, why is why this breaking point moment registers as powerfully as it does.

Images: DVD Beaver

The Social Network

Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jessie Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones
Running Time: 121 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

SPOILERS FOLLOW 


“You are going to go through life thinking girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that that’s not true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”  


David Fincher's The Social Network doesn't waste any time. It gets down to business right away and if you thought going in this would just be "The Facebook Movie" it takes only until the end of the verbally explosive opening scene to change your mind. In it, future Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) gets dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) after she tires of putting up with his obsession with gaining entry into Harvard's "final clubs" because they'll lead to a better life. They talk and talk, firing Emmy-winning writer Aaron Sorkin's dialogue at and over each other at machine gun speed in a crowded, dimly lit bar with the conversation becoming more contentious as he turns sarcastic and condescending. At first, she almost seems interested, almost amused, until it becomes obvious this is someone without a clue how to interact with people, and as shocked as he is at being dumped, we are at how he got a date with her in the first place. Then comes that blistering quote above. That question of whether Zuckerberg really is an asshole never completely goes away. And if he is, does that preclude him from being a genius? Or a visionary? Or maybe he's just lucky. We don't get what resembles an answer until the final scene but it's the aftershock of the opening one that reverberates through the rest of the picture.

That night, the brutal break-up sends Zuckerberg sprinting back to his dorm room to drunkenly blog about Erica and with the help of his best (and only) friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), create a stir with a server-crashing page called "FaceMash," a "Hot or Not" type application where guys get to rate and compare the physical attractiveness of females on campus. With that the idea of Facebook is planted and one of the elements I appreciated most in Sorkin's screenplay is its full acknowledgment that Zuckerberg didn't exactly invent the light bulb here, but expanded on what was already being implemented shoddily by Friendster and MySpace. It's all in the execution, much of which revolves around the added ingredient of "exclusivity," or the notion that people want to feel as if they're in on something cool. That's what the other social networking sites were missing and once it's incorporated into what was then known as "THE Facebook" the possibilities became endless, as did the pitfalls. Ironically, Zuckerberg provides the perceived social acceptance for people online he could never receive himself on campus until meeting the Winklevoss Twins (Armie Hammer), crew team jocks who recruit him as programmer for their new relationship-based "Harvard Connection" web site emerging (coincidentally or not) just as Zuckerberg launches his.

The story is mostly told through flashbacks and interspersed with courtroom depositions from the two lawsuits eventually brought against Zuckerberg by the twins claiming intellectual property theft and from co-founder Saverin, who's cut out of his piece of the pie by his best friend as the company expands. The wedge driving them apart is Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), a hard partying hype machine looking to latch on to the next big thing after lawsuits from the music industry bled him dry. What's so funny is as the company grows bigger and bigger the further removed it becomes from the original conceit of re-creating the social experience of college online. With expansion comes at least some degree of exclusivity lost and you're left wondering whether the whole thing really would have been better off confined to campuses, since Facebook, as we know it now, has inadvertently come closer to re-creating the social experience of high school more than college. More importantly, we're also left wondering whether Zuckerberg would have been better off since the "better life" he wished for himself didn't necessarily include being the CEO of a billion dollar company. Money isn't the primary motivator for someone who shows up to courtroom depositions wearing jeans and Adidas flip-flops.

Jesse Eisenberg wasn't just the best choice for Zuckerberg, but the only actor who could have possibly done justice to the role, giving his most complex performance yet and one that should finally end those annoying and unjustified Michael Cera comparisons. Having already occupied one end of the spectrum with awkward portrayals of sensitive nerds who win the girl at the end, he leaves the nerd part intact, but removes nearly every other emotion. His trademark accessibility as a performer is muted, offering the character up as a damaged, rejected soul so frustrated at his social incompetence (which borders on Asperger's) and obsessed with fitting in that he uses the only weapon he has: His I.Q. Surprisingly, Timberlake's performance as opportunistic party animal Sean Parker isn't the strongest among the major supporting players but it's important to put that in perspective since he still steals every scene he's in. At first glance he appears to be playing an exaggerated version of himself but his work grows on you and the more you think back on it the more you have to love the irony of music's biggest superstar giving inspirational speeches extolling the virtues of internet piracy and file sharing.

British actor (and future Spider-Man) Andrew Garfield, steals the movie out from under everyone as Eduardo Saverin, the company's CFO who's betrayed by his best friend. We anticipate a smooth, cool operator in full control but Garfield conveys a certain vulnerability and wimpiness that suggests he's being taken for a ride and used as Zuckerberg's doormat, yet he still manages to find a way to make him not come off as a fool. He earns the most sympathy and while still not totally blameless emerges as the biggest victim no matter how many different sides of the story seem to be presented. It's his story as much as Zuckerberg's and you should probably get familiar with his laptop smashing meltdown at Facebook headquarters as you'll likely be seeing many clips of it over the next few months.

As twin rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (AKA the "Winklevii"), Armie Hammer, aided by Fincher's impressive Benjamin Button-level technology, creates two separate and unique personalities, identical only in never knowing how it feels to not get what they want, as Zuckerberg puts it. Consider how unlikable they could have been and appreciate how Hammer prevents that, to the point that you actually kind of feel bad for these privileged kids and want to take their side, if only because no one else will. With just two and a half scenes and under five minutes of screen time, Rooney Mara is unforgettably devastating as the catalyst of this social earthquake and it'll be a while before I forget that look on Erica's face when she realizes how Zuckerberg humiliated her. Facebook was about a girl, which makes perfect sense since everything always is. Speculation can now start as to whether she's real, fictitious or maybe resides in that gray area in between. 

Watching the deposition scenes and seeing each character's point of view gives us no better understanding of the truth since all that can be said for sure is that each character believes completely what they're saying. Similarly, you're left to watch and wonder how much if any of Sorkin's script (adapted in part from those depositions and Ben Mezrich's non-fiction novel, The Accidental Billionaires) can be considered a reliable interpretation of real-life events. Supposedly, the real Zuckerberg hasn't seen the film but has gone on record stating it's fictional and meant to be fun.  And on that count he's right, especially anything involving the twins and Zuckerberg's hilariously sarcastic "testimony."  Whether he's viewed it or not, or whether he actually means that or not, he may have unintentionally hit the nail on the head in terms of the right approach to take with this. And there are definitely worse things than being an important enough American figure to warrant a picture of this quality.

With Fincher and Sorkin involved I knew this wouldn't actually be ABOUT Facebook, but it's still amazing just how little it is about it and how much is accomplished with what looked on paper to be the most laughable of topics for a feature film. We should have known not to doubt them when we first hear Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' unforgettably unnerving and moody score and see just how dark and gloomy everything looks, confirming that the director who made Fight Club and Zodiac most definitely made this. And as challenging as it should have been to maneuveur around a subject that potentially deals with a lot of talking and sitting around at computers and boardrooms, it's surprising the number of scenes that consist of that, and how tension-filled and exciting they are. 

Comparisons are being made to Citizen Kane, but in all fairness those stem mostly from narrative and thematic similarities, which are plentiful. Like Kane, Zuckerberg gets lonelier and more isolated as he rises to the top, except he manages to spread his loneliness to everyone else. We're all now as socially disconnected as he is, while strangely somehow feeling more connected, at least on some superficial level. Yet there's something admirable and anti-heroic about the character because he set out to achieve a goal and did it the only way he knew how.

How you enter The Social Network is a big determining factor as to how you'll feel when you leave, mainly because of that mysterious phenomenon known as "HYPE," a force capable of cutting down any film, regardless of quality. It seems for a change I was actually able to keep my insanely high expectations mostly in check, resulting in them being exceeded. And as difficult as it's been, I've been careful to contain my praise knowing plenty of opportunities should arise for me to gush about it further in the coming months. It'll be interesting to find out how a film so timely and dependent on current technology will age, but I bet if you showed it to an audience ten years ago and told them this is the direction we're headed, their eyes probably would have popped out of their heads.

It's entirely too early to determine whether it "speaks to a generation" but it definitely speaks to the moment and there is a feeling that its story of greed, loneliness and betrayal has a fighting chance at outlasting the social phenomenon that spawned it. Despite not caring much for Facebook, I'd never suggest the story behind it doesn't deserve to be told, especially when it's constructed as brilliantly as this. The Social Network makes the strongest case yet for Facebook's existence, being that we couldn't have gotten this film without it.