THE SOCIAL NETWORK. (2010) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE SOCIAL NETWORK. (2010) DIRECTED BY DAVID FINCHER. SCRIPT BY AARON SORKIN. BASED ON ‘THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES: THE FOUNDING OF FACEBOOK, A TALE OF SEX, MONEY, GENIUS AND BETRAYAL’ BY BEN MEZRICH.
STARRING JESSE EISENBERG, ANDREW GARFIELD, ARMIE HAMMER, JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, MAX MINGHELLA, ROONEY MARA AND DAVID SELBY.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I’d put off watching this film for ages, dismissing it as probably being a load of rubbish, but it’s not rubbish at all. It’s a strangely compelling, gripping and fascinating two-hour peek into the life of Mark Zuckerberg, the man we all know as the founder of Facebook, and I was glued to it from start to finish.

Apparently, the Harvard computer science student gave himself the idea for Facebook after being dumped by his girlfriend and writing some very misogynistic stuff about her on his blog, before figuring out a way of rating the ‘hot’ girls on campus online by using their photos. His Internet-crashing venture led to the creation of the site we know and (mostly!) love in early 2004.

The invention was originally intended as a way for college students at select universities to connect with each other, but the site expanded rapidly and had one billion users worldwide by 2012. I had been aware of it myself only since about 2010, and joined in 2012 with the purchase of my first ever laptop.

I’ve generally found using Facebook to be a really positive experience. I’ve made some wonderful friends there who all share my interest in films and books, and I’ve been able to share my movie reviews and other writings on the site as well, which has been a huge help. I haven’t really encountered too many jerks or dickheads on Facebook- maybe one or two at most- so I guess the jerks and dickheads all congregate on Twitter or Instagram or wherever else…!

Anyway, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t come across as a very nice guy in the early stages of the film because of the way he reacts to being dumped, but I began to root for him quite seriously when the Terrible Twins, now Bitcoin billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, come to the forefront of the film when they decide to sue MZ for bazillions of dollars for ‘stealing their idea’ for a social networking site.

I don’t believe that MZ stole the idea for Facebook from the twins. He’s clearly been a coding genius from a young age and was always going to do something magnificent with his life and his brains.

The twins, both ably played by the hunky Armie Hammer (he’s in trouble at the moment for being a bit kinky in his sex life; this just makes me want to embrace him, not ‘cancel’ him!), are spoiled privileged rich boys who claim MZ nicked their idea, instead of coming up with his own, which he would have been perfectly able to do without any help from them, thank you very much.

Sadly, the courts took the side of the Winklevoss twins, probably because they had unlimited use of their billionaire father’s crack law team. Remember old David Selby– he plays their lawyer- as Richard Channing on FALCON CREST? He was always coming up against the might and sleight of hand of Angela Channing (Jane Wyman), the filthy-rich businesswoman with more balls than the Wimbledon finals. God, I used to love that show, with all its fabulous glamour and under-handed shenanigans and the implausibly named Chase Gioberti! Haha, we’ll be talking about DALLAS and DYNASTY next. 

Where was I in the film review, anyway? Oh yes, Justin Timberlake turns up as one Sean Parker, founder of the computer file-sharing service, NAPSTER; I have no clue what that means. Also, he looks exactly like himself. He tries to encourage MZ to party down with underaged girlies and take all kinds of so-called ‘recreational’ drugs as he is a big messer. MZ really only likes to code, however, so he goes on with that and leaves the partying and the madness to other people.  

I don’t think the Winklevoss twins should have been awarded so much money for the so-called ‘intellectual property theft’ of their precious ‘idea.’ They should have gone off and invented something else, if they were that bothered. It was right of the court to restore MZ’s pal Eduardo Saverin’s name to the Facebook masthead, however; he remains one of the legitimate co-founders, after all.

I still remember how much fun it was to look up old boyfriends’ profiles on Facebook, back when I first joined. It was also good for checking if girls I’d gone to school with had gotten fat or had a nicer house than me. (Most of them did; the bitches!)

I’ve calmed down a good bit since then, mind you. It’s no longer such a novelty to look up other people’s business online, as we’ve had that facility for years now. It’s still nice to know it’s there, though, just in case anyone new comes along to send me a friend request.

The main takeaway from this excellent film is a negative one, sadly. Watching the disgraceful behaviour of some of the rich Harvard students in it gave me the shivers, because these are the men- it’s always men- who will one day lead the world. They are the men who’ll invent things, control things and make the big money, so big that we peasants wouldn’t really be able to comprehend it. It wouldn’t really seem real to us, do you know what I mean?

But, just going by what’s in the film, growing up as the privileged ‘few’ who alone have access to the elite, exclusive clubs of Harvard doesn’t seem to be filling these young lads full of empathy and compassion for their fellow men.

It’s kind of like when I saw a picture of Boris Johnson and his university chums in the news recently. All that privilege, I was thinking. All that future power. You can see it in them already. You can even smell it. Maybe one shouldn’t generalise. Maybe there’ll be a few good eggs who only want to do good in their world. It boggles the mind, though, how many of them might forget that with great power comes great responsibility. Pity, that.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:

https://amzn.to/3ulKWkv

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

REBECCA. (2020) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

REBECCA. (2020) DIRECTED BY BEN WHEATLEY. BASED ON THE 1938 NOVEL BY DAPHNE DU MAURIER.

STARRING LILY JAMES, ARMIE HAMMER, KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS, KEELEY HAWES, ANN DOWD AND JANE LAPOTAIRE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I’m not crazy about this re-make, to be totally honest with you. Let’s get something clear from the start. It could never have hoped to rival the original 1940 movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier as the bride and groom respectively.

That original film is a masterpiece of gothic romantic horror and mystery combined, with superb acting, tension building and wildly beautiful Cornish scenery. It was one of Hitchcock’s finest films, and probably Joan Fontaine’s best performance ever.

She has a genuinely believable air of naivete and gullibility about her that makes us really see her as the frightened Mrs. de Winter Mark Two who doesn’t come close to her predecessor for sophistication and worldly-wise confidence, but that’s exactly why she appeals to tormented widower Maxim de Winter.  

Where was I? Oh yes. Harrumph. This re-make was never going to be fit to polish the boots of the original, but that’s okay. As long as it showed us something a bit different in it, we’d be okay with it, or as long as it presented some aspect of the original in a new light, say.

But it just plods along really, in a rather dull and pedestrian fashion, changing a few things here and there for the sake of change, and because it’s change for the sake of change, it kind of comes across as annoying and superfluous.

The handsome and muscular Armie Hammer is a bit wooden as the millionaire husband, and Lily James is whingy and irritating as the gauche, lower-class bride he brings to Manderley on the Cornish coast, a year or so after the death of his wife Rebecca. We know the plot inside-out by now.

The new Mrs. de Winter sees the deceased Rebecca’s stamp of ownership all over Manderley and her new husband, Maxim de Winter. Mrs. Danvers, Manderley’s austere, forbidding housekeeper, is still devoted to her now-dead mistress, having known her from a child, and she takes every opportunity to rub the new bride’s face in the fact that she isn’t a patch on Rebecca and never will be, so she might as well kill herself… Good old Danny, always looking on the bright side!

Socially, a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon yawns fearfully between Maxim and Wife Number Two. He lives in a fabulous mansion on inherited wealth and she is an orphan, reduced to providing companionship to sour, embittered old biddies whose glory days are long behind them. Maxim and his bride are sexually attracted to each other, at least, but their sex scenes are far from electrifying, sadly, more like a damp squib.

All the main checkpoints are still here. The dreadful Mrs. Van Hopper, for whom the nameless bride is ‘a friend of the bosom.’ The old boathouse, and the crazy old man who says, ‘she’s gorn, isn’t she, into the sea? She won’t come back no more.’

The ill-fated costume ball, in which the bride plays right into the hands of Mrs. Danvers and wears a costume guaranteed to repulse Maxim, not delight him. The shipwreck with the decomposed corpse on board. The coroner’s inquest. The fire, but the person you think should die in it doesn’t die in it. They have something else in mind for themselves as a grand finale. Sorry, that’s a spoiler.

We really miss the smooth, suave, sardonically self-serving Jack Favell as played by George Sanders here. We miss his eccentric, half-hopping entrance through an open window, the way he taps his cigarette on the case before lighting up, and the air of sleazy sexuality that surrounds him permanently and that allows him to have a forbidden love affair with his beloved cousin, Rebecca, who, by all accounts, what quite a wee goer in her day.

Sam Riley as Jack Favell in the 2020 adaptation might cut it in a modern version of UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS or DOWNTON ABBEY, but is somewhat lacking in the sex appeal needed to produce a good performance as the louche Favell.  

The one thing that’s completely new- and good!- is the addition of veteran British actress Jane Lapotaire (THE ASPHYX, LADY JANE) as Maxim and Beatrice de Winter’s Aged Grandmother. She shames the new bride most dreadfully by telling her stridently, more than once, that she’s ‘not Rebecca!’ The very idea that she could be the mistress of the house! The Aged Crone cackles mirthlessly at the notion.

There’s some lovely scenery and settings in the film, but it’s still a cheap, clunky imitation of one of the best mystery movies ever made. Watch it if you like out of curiosity, or if you like Armie Hammer (I do!) or nice views of the cliffs and the sea, but there’s not a lot else here to sea, I mean, to see, to be quite blunt. I don’t like being so negative about a film but I think that here we have a distinct case of all style and no substance. Sorry…!

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books: