The Social Network

The first five minutes of David Fincher's The Social Network, scripted by the inestimable Aaron Sorkin, is quite likely the best and briefest exposition of a central character I have seen in film in quite awhile -- if ever. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard student who co-founds Facebook, ripping off c...lassmates and friends along the way. The scene takes place in a bar where Zuckerberg is having a beer with his "girlfriend," Boston University student Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). By the end of the scene, he's insulted and demeaned the young woman eight ways to Sunday and is so blind and deaf to his own callousness that he is mystified and pissed off by her dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Later he trashes her on his blog, which sets him on the path to worldwide notoriety and disdain. I've enjoyed Eisenberg's work -- Adventureland, Zombieland and The Squid and the Whale -- and his performance as the accidental sociopath Zuckerberg is remarkable.