Directed by David Fincher, The Social Network is a 2010 drama film loosely based on controversies surrounding the creation of Facebook.
In the fall of 2003, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is an intelligent but arrogant Harvard sophomore. When his girlfriend dumps him, he creates a website that ranks the attractiveness of photographs of women on campus. The popularity of the website causes a stir on campus and three fellow students hire Mark to build their Harvard-exclusive dating website. The film then begins intercutting scenes from deposition hearings in the future, when Mark is facing multiple lawsuits for stealing the idea for Facebook and for misleading his friend and business partner Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield) into signing away his stake in the company. As Facebook quickly grows in popularity, Mark's relationship with Eduardo becomes increasingly strained, leading Eduardo to freeze the company bank account. Mark retaliates by creating a newly incorporated company and tricking Eduardo into signing an agreement that dilutes his shares to a fraction of the third he started with. The film ends with Mark settling the lawsuits and sending a Facebook friend request to the girlfriend who dumped him in the film's first scene.
Exploring themes of aspiration, alienation, misogyny, genius, and betrayal, the film chronicles Zuckerberg's unlikely rise from socially isolated college student to billionaire CEO of one of the world's largest tech companies. Although the film is based on real-life controversies, Aaron Sorkin's script was adapted from The Accidental Billionaires, an unverified dramatization of Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg's relationship. Both Saverin and Zuckerberg have disputed their portrayals in The Social Network, with Saverin calling the movie "Hollywood fantasy" and insisting that there are no hard feelings between him and Zuckerberg.
At release, The Social Network received nearly universal positive reviews. Critic Sandra Hall of the Sydney Morning Herald loved the film, calling it "a shamelessly biased account, as well as a seductively plausible one, although you have to keep your wits about you to get the full effect." At the Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Leading Actor for Eisenberg, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Mixing. It won the Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score. The film was also financially successful: against a budget of $40 million, it made $224.9 million at the box office. In interviews, several of the major creative forces behind the film, including Eisenberg and Sorkin, have said they would take part in a sequel.
