The Social Network

I'm not even on Facebook (stubbornly remaining part of the Faceless few) and i loved this film. 'The film that defines a generation' is the tag line (along with the above), and I'd probably have to agree in many ways. It's Mark Zukerberg's voracious desperation to achieve status, recognition and popularity that's really his motivation, his driving force: to be accepted, applauded, to get girls. tapping into that, and sharing it with everyone else is the key to his success, whatever the personal cost in the end. It may sound mad. it is. but that's just it. everyone wants a bit of exactly what he did, which is what has made his success.

The development of the site, in a pique of post-dump rage, via the girl rating 'face-mash', idea stealing and friend dumping is intercut with two law suits subsequently brought against Zuckerberg by his former best friend Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins (the Winklevei as Zuckerberg calls them in the film). With a script by Aaron Sorkin it's fast paced, taught and punchy - no one's a cardboard cut out; a nerd, a jock, a good time boy, a Jew, an over privileged brat they each may be, and that's important to their identity, but it's not painted  in a cartoonish way. Your sympathies flit between everyone - they're all clever, dynamic and driven yet also selfish, myopic and overconfident. the complexity of the characters leads to an oblique reading of the film - i imagine everyone will take away something different, and that'll change every time you scrutinise the story.

It's out on the 15th October. See it.