The Social Network

A fascinating portrait of the collision point between friendship and ambition. There may be any number of half-truths in "The Social Network", a film that steadfastly refuses to change the names of the real people depicted on screen, but I didn't care about any that. I wanted to be entertained, and I was. I knew some of the backstory, the Mark Zuckerberg "Creation myth" if you will, but most of the details were new to me. The cast is awesome and the writing is stellar. The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin pings lines at the audience as though engaging his opposite number in a table tennis match. Jesse Eisenberg is particularly excellent as Zuckerberg, playing him as an outcast who may or may not suffer from Asperberger's. In "The Social Network", a cadre of young men get rich quick. We in the audience are left to toll the cost as friendships shatter and fade in front of our eyes. Ah, the impudence - and brilliance - of youth.