BEFORE: I'm finally getting to one of the most prominent films of 2010 - that's progress, I guess. Looking back though, I think I have been hitting the more recent films from 2011-2013 pretty hard lately - it was just a real challenge to work my thematic chain in this direction. Linking from "Project X", Thomas Mann was also in "Fun Size" with Barry Livingston.
THE PLOT: Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, but is later sued by two brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and the cofounder who was later squeezed out of the business.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Flash of Genius" (Movie #624)
AFTER: I don't have a dog in this fight, as they say - I'm not on the Facebook and I have little interest in Facebook. I don't have much interest in the things that "everyone" is doing, because I want to be sure that I do the things I do because I really want to do them. So without the Facebook angle, I'm left with a film about people suing each other over who created a thing, and that thing could be anything from a new car to a movie idea to a new snack cake.
To me the question becomes, can one copyright an idea? Zuckerberg's character draws an analogy to a chair - once somebody invented the chair, he didn't sue the next guy who made a chair, or a slightly different chair, or a better chair. The hottest food trend right now seems to be the cronut - that's a croissant mixed with a doughnut - and after somebody made one and found it to be tasty and pleasant, other bakers had to figure out how it was made, and then make one with a slightly different name. Or look at pretzel rolls, one fast food chain made a burger or sandwich with a pretzel roll, and then suddenly every chain had to have one on their menu.
My point is - the average person doesn't always care who was first on the market with something, they care who puts out the best product - and who markets it best, but that's another issue. Which is why we have copyrights and intellectual property lawsuits, to prevent bigger, better marketers from screwing the little guys. But again, you can't copyright an idea, only an exact method for enabling or delivering that idea.
So if I have to side with someone in this case, it looks like I'm siding with Zuckerberg - based purely on the details of the case, assuming he didn't use any of the Winkelvoss code when he made "The Facebook", and assuming that the decisions he made were motivated by good business, and not personal vendettas. But how does one prove THAT?
I still hate time-jumping (sorry, non-linear editing), but at least it had a point this time - the court cases were interspersed with flashbacks that either proved or disproved the legal points being made. And of course nobody wants to watch a dry, boring court case play out in real time, so the flashbacks served to perk up the proceedings - I understand WHY it was done, but I still don't have to approve of it.
The irony of the story is quite obvious - a guy creates a web-site that gets him millions of "friends", but can't seem to form lasting friendships or relationships in the real world. But by extension, isn't it better to have a few solid, dependable friendships in real life than to have a bunch of half-friends connected to you by arbitrary "likes" and invisible connections? Is it truly better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven?
Also starring Jesse Eisenberg (last heard in "Rio"), Andrew Garfield (last seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man"), Justin Timberlake (last seen in "Trouble With the Curve"), Armie Hammer (last seen in "J. Edgar"), Rooney Mara (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Max Minghella (last seen in "The Ides of March"), Rashida Jones (last seen in "Our Idiot Brother"), Dakota Johnson (last seen in "21 Jump Street"), Brenda Song, with a cameo from Wallace Langham (last seen in "The Great Buck Howard").
RATING: 5 out of 10 stock options
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