The Social Reckoning

If you’re not read up on how blatantly irresponsible Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has been over the last 10 years, the Social Reckoning is a great gateway explainer on what you’ve missed, and therefore I give Sorkin credit for hopefully giving some a much needed PSA. But as a sequel to such an iconic film in The Social Network, and even just as a film without that context, The Social Reckoning has a tremendous amount of issues. The biggest is probably the casting. I love Jeremy Strong, but he looks 15 years older than Mark Zuckerberg, and despite his shockingly low screen time, it just feels so wrong. Mikey Madison is an equally poor choice to play Frances Haugen, who is the same age as Zuckerberg in real life, but is inexplicably two decades younger in the movie, and also looks nothing like her. And then there’s Jeremy Allen White, who brought nothing to Jeff Horowitz, who was so boringly written it’s infuriating. The movie was extremely safe and vanilla, and shockingly un-Sorkin. Everyone expected that he’d deliver another film that was so high dialogue as to detract from the film, but this was so average script that it didn’t even feel written by him. Strange choices all around. As J and E state, if you didn’t know this was Sorkin and you didn’t know this was a sequel, the movie has some merit, and that falls in its educational territory, but if you do watch it, understand its limitations.

-Z

For what this was attempting to be, a follow up to the Social Network, this is potentially as good as it could have been. The reality of the story is just less flashy, Zuckerberg is less intriguing, and the whole world around Facebook is just a lot more depressing - but my expectations going in were low because I realized this. With that being said, I still genuinely enjoyed watching the story unfold and was happy to see that it wasn’t painfully overwritten. Still, the casting was overall a disappointment and I would argue this would have been better as a miniseries focused more on the journalism.

-E

I am unsure what Z and E will say about this film, but I have a feeling that I will be the highest rated. I thought this movie was a good suspenseful and informational movie on the effects of social media and was done well. The problem is the want for it to be a sequel and not a companion piece. If you are looking for Social Network you will be terribly disappointed. If you are looking for a drama that can be slow at times, but have strong acting, this could be for you. Like I said, I liked it, but I do not think it is good enough to win any awards.

-J

Z 6.75
E 7.5
J 8.25

ZEJ 7.5