February 19, 2011

The Social Network: Movie

Today I finally saw the movie - The Social Network. And this totally does justice to the phenomenon of Social Network. The best part about the movie is that its timely, and not a decade late - like its case for most of them. 

(Spoiler Alert)

Its a chronicle of the making of Facebook, and while not sure how credible and accurate the events are, the movie surely makes for one gripping watch. Its a story about its founder, and his years at Harvard where he accidentally stumbles upon a few ideas leading to Facebook. Dumped by girls for his geeky and arrogant ways, he finds a way to get back at them. He hacks into the university network, and gets the pictures of all the girls. He creates a webpage where users could rank the hottest girls, comparing two girls at a time. This leads to the servers crashing, and makes gives birth to the idea of Social Network. 

Poster: The Social Network


From there, the movie takes some more time detailing the journey, and how he may have been inspired by few others along the way. It talks about some of the underlying ideologies of the company - no flashing ads, let users decide what to use it for. These are essentially the same principles which made Google what it is today. It also touches upon the dilemma for an entrepreneur about when to sell the venture - the timing is seldom right, and you are either too early or too late. 

My only wish is the movie were a little longer - it didn't touch upon the personal lives of any of the protagonists. So, we do not know anything about the background and family life of the people. It seems to be intentional - and the movie only focuses on the company and its growth. Its a good watch for anyone hooked on the Facebook, or any other network for that matter. 

4 comments:

Meliha said...

I enjoyed this movie far more than I thought I would. Not sure if MZ really is how they portrayed "him" or if that was just a character...but it sure was interesting.

--Meliha
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SK said...

Yes, have exactly similar views. Not sure how much real the movie was, but it was certainly entertaining. And storyline could have been used for any other company (apart from facebook).

Nightflier said...

I have read a book called the Facebook Effect, and it was not this dramatic and told the story in a very drab, professional way. But for cinema's sake this is a very very good movie to convey to people the idea :) Liked the movie nonetheless.

SK said...

Yes, this one is based on another book - 'The Accidental Billionaire', and have heard its pretty similar to the book....I haven't read either of them though...:(

Everybody loves a little masala to spice things up...even if there is nothing in reality :)