When pressed to name the best courtroom thriller of the century, many cinephiles will likely name The Social Network. The 2010 film pulled the curtain back on one of history’s most surprising tech empires, chronicling the rise of a social media platform that still dominates today. In examining the one-sided friendships and unflinching betrayals of his early days at Harvard, it also effectively predicted CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s megomaniacal fall from grace. The film’s tongue-in-cheek marketing, which cribbed from Facebook’s iconic blue imagery, summed up the paradox: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”
The Social Network is a timeless and nearly flawless film that’s never needed a sequel; its subject matter has become so infamous that any dramatization would be in poor taste. That’s why it’s so disappointing to watch Aaron Sorkin, the film’s screenwriter, go out of his way to jeopardize The Social Network’s legacy with a follow-up.
