Becoming a mogul in the new millennium looks like capitalism minus the humility in David Fincher’s The Social Network. With a superb script by Aaron Sorkin (based on Ben Mezrich book The Accidental Billionaires) the story of the founding of Facebook moves in a full circle suggesting that the world’s largest social networking website, as well as Napster, was created out of a need to impress a girl.

Make that to impress a girl who had dumped the protagonist. You will live your entire life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a computer nerd, but you’re wrong says Erica (Rooney Mora) to Mark Zuckerberg (Jessie Eisenberg) as she breaks up with him. It’s because you’re an asshole. Zuckerberg then goes to his Ivy League dorm room and writes mean things about Erica on his blog. Fueled by beer Zuckerberg then hacks into all the Harvard colleges and overnight sets up a website that compares faces of all the female students using a “who’s hot and who’s not” scenario (Facemash).

Despite being put on academic probation for his prank our sarcastic hero devises an early template of Facebook to be used on an exclusive campus-only basis. Helping fund Zuckerberg is his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). The Social Network also co-stars Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as the Winklevoss Twins. At one point Zuckerberg refers to them as the Winklevi.

The Social Network moves at lightning speed, certainly faster than the connection from my local internet provider. Zingers ring throughout the script, which keeps hopping between depositions Zuckerberg makes for two lawsuits involving the rights to Facebook. This Sony production also wisely casts their future stars of tomorrow in Garfield (the new Spiderman) and Mara (the star of Fincher’s upcoming remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo).

Fincher makes a bunch of people typing on computer keyboards and sitting around in rooms talking seem like the most important thing ever. For a sequence set in England involving the Henley Royal Regatta Fincher shoots the footage with forced perspective, shallow depth of field; an effect which renders the areas actually in focus as miniature. When the players meet in a painfully loud nightclub we still hear all the dialogue, seemingly in a perfect mix with the thundering music. Plus Fincher uses one actor to play twins, itself a generous technical trick. From beginning to end The Social Network feels like a major achiever.

- Michael Bergeron