The Social Network (2010) Review

It's not the great direction or the interesting true story that make this movie great, it's the performances. The person who casted Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Armie Hammer to be in a serious true story drama that you wanted to contend in the Oscars surely was making a risky move that must have been criticized at the time. These guys are all far too inexperienced or just plain bad. It seemed like a cast for a mediocre comedy. But it turned out, you don't want those acting legends, you need the young guys for this. And the casting direction ended up making the right choice. The Social Network is one of the very few movies where the lead three performances are great and they completely define their character. Justin Timberlake, known for bad music and even worse acting, actually acts decent for once, in fact, he gave a great performance in making his character an extremely unlikeable jerk. It's hard to rate which of the two lead performances is better, but Andrew Garfield's is certainly more of a breakout. While this could be considered Eisenberg's breakout performance as well, he did have a few decent works before the Social Network. Andrew Garfield was however, a nobody. I could see why people could instantly dismiss the movie because of unknown actors at the time, such as Andrew Garfield, but now they must think, I want to see the Andrew Garfield movie, he acted great in The Social Network. And fortunately, he was able to get another great role, Spider-Man, where the films may have dropped in quality, but the lead actor was much, much better than Sam Raimi's original trilogy. The only real crime about the Social Network is that Andrew Garfield didn't get the Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nomination he so profoundly deserved. And I was thinking the other night, The Dark Knight is the only perfect film that gets every little detail right, but The Social Network may very well fit that criteria.
Movie Rating: A