Also I'm convinced that most reviewers thought the movie was merely OK, but they risked seeming out of touch with the "zeitgeist" the film represented, so they heaped praise on it. Nobody will remember the film in two years.
when people who don't understand Facebook review a movie made by people who don't understand Facebook, there's only one possible conclusion: THIS! IS! FACEBOOK!
Even as someone who enjoyed the movie, that's bang on.
The more I think on it, the more I think the somewhat more critical reviews are bang on (that Harvard Crimson review, some critiques on slate and HuffPo). It's that, TSN may be a very good movie, but the idea that it's "the movie of the decade/of our generation/of the times" is asinine.
It can't be a movie to reflect the revolution of social networking, its positives and negatives, because Sorkin just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand facebook, and he doesn't give a shit about it. Now, sorkin gets and cares about politics, hence why the West Wing was great. And Studio 60, well, that was explicitly a show about a writer and a showrunner, so obviously Sorkin "gets" that and is passionate about his own craft.
But he just doesn't get the subject matter here, or understand how social networking has changed things (beyond the very superficial). So instead, he wrote a very good movie about greed, betrayal, etc, etc. Facebook is practically just a Macguffin (or whatever), that could be interchangeable with any "hot" "multimillion dollar" idea.
And I think it shows in Sorkin's Zuckerburg. For however much he is well-written in some ways, the character's base is still the age-old Hollywood stereotype. Genius super-nerd who is socially awkward and isolated, with almost no friends. And the motivation for facebook is reduced to a desire to get into the "cool" club, to become popular, and later, to exact revenge on the guy who got into the "cool" club over him. And to screw over the jocks.
