The Social Reckoning

The Social Network (2010) regularly appears on lists of the best films of the 21st century, sometimes even at number one. It had a force to be reckoned with, David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) directing, Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball, A Few Good Men, The Newsroom, The West Wing) writing, Trent Reznor (Challengers) and Atticus Ross providing the score, and Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain, Zombieland) starring as Mark Zuckerberg. 

For The Social Reckoning, Sorkin returns, this time in the director’s chair as well as behind the screenplay. His directing credits include The Trial of the Chicago 7, Molly’s Game and a contender for worst film of the 21st century, Being the Ricardos.

None of the rest of the original creative team has returned in the same capacity for this next chapter of the Zuckerberg story. Perhaps that’s because The Social Network was a perfect standalone tale of betrayal, ambition, power, class and the delicious irony of a man who connected the world only to find himself profoundly isolated. Or perhaps everyone simply realised how much the world has changed since then.

The first film arrived just three years after Facebook opened to the general public. Nearly two decades later, Zuckerberg is no longer the scrappy upstart fighting his way into the big leagues. He’s Goliath.

This time, the focus isn’t on startups, romance, fractured friendships or even Zuckerberg himself. It’s on how social media companies have both rewired our brains,and threatened American democracy. There’s a great film to be made here. Unfortunately, Sorkin doesn’t quite make it.

To enjoy it, you'll have to look away from some glaring missteps, including a slider-timeline gimmick and an almost comically overexplained subplot about why the film’s female lead needs to glam up. But the bigger problem is that Sorkin falls back only to what he knows best: procedural storytelling. He’s a master of the form, but here it feels like a step backwards. As a cinematic follow-up to its predecessor, the film falls short. It's lie a prestige HBO movie that happens to be showing in cinemas.

Speaking of that, Sorkin has assembled two of TV's finest performers in Jeremy Strong and Jeremy Allen White. Following their respective turns in The Social Reckoning and last year's Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, there’s something frustrating about watching two of my favourite TV actors in a film that feels so much like television. 

Strong plays Zuckerberg, while Allen White is a Wall Street Journal journalist who connects with Facebook employee Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison of Anora), the whistleblower who would eventually land on the cover of Time magazine. 

What does work, even if not always cinematically, is the old-fashioned pleasure of a Sorkin script, plus  this is all true stuff and fascinating. What happens when a profitable algorithm learns that people respond more enthusiastically to hate than to harmony? What happens when the platform’s business model rewards that behaviour by feeding users more of what makes them angry? A company ironically created to bring people together has helped drive them apart, with consequences we’re already living through and others we can only begin to imagine. 

Ultimately, the film frames the whistleblower’s success as a triumphant victory. But as the credits approach, you’re left wondering what, exactly, has changed. The company is still a Goliath. There is no reckoning.

In 2010, people wondered why make a movie about something so new. It turns out the original film wasn't too early to tell Facebook's story and the sequel was too late.

In a nutshell: More a TV version in the classic style of All the President’s Men than a proper cinematic sequel, The Social Reckoning is equally fascinating and frustrating, yet still needs to be seen.

Where to see it: In theaters. Obviously, it will hold up well on TV later.

Would it be better with Olivia Colman? Of course.

Award potential: This one is not going to make the list for Picture, Director, Actors, and in a surprise, should be looked over for screenplay. Shoulda be an Emmy contender.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks (or stream it in near future).