Gray Areas: There’s no ‘Reckoning’ in Sorkin’s film
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The 1976 movie "All the President's Men" ended with President Richard M. Nixon's re-election in 1972, but the real ending came in the postscript that appeared on screen -- less than two years later, Nixon resigned in disgrace.
"The Social Reckoning," opening today, tells the story of whistleblower Frances Haugen, a Facebook employee in its civil integrity division who shared internal documents with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. They revealed the social media platform's role in the spread of misinformation and its damaging effects on users, particularly its youngest users.
Haugen testified before Congress and Parliament and appeared on "60 Minutes" and magazine covers. Horwitz won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2021 investigative series.
But Aaron Sorkin's film leaves out the important postscript:
Number of monthly Facebook/Meta users in 2020, before the Wall Street Journal series ran: 2.8 billion
Number of monthly Facebook/Meta users today: 3.07 billion
Market value of Facebook/Meta in 2020: $781 billion
Market value of Facebook/Meta today: $1.86 trillion
There's been a lot of reaping; there was no reckoning.
If this was a superhero movie, it would end with Batman getting a commendation from Commissioner Gordon, but the Joker still triumphing.
It makes for an odd moviegoing experience, especially for someone who has two Facebook accounts, one personal and one work-related, and is an administrator on a third.
I'm a huge Aaron Sorkin fan. If he wrote it, I'll watch and probably enjoy it. Even his misfires -- "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," most of "The Newsroom" -- have moments of brilliance.
"Social Reckoning" is never not entertaining. Sorkin has a gift for writing expository dialogue with wit and an electricity to it that keeps an audience engaged, while also giving them the information they need to understand what follows. That's a necessary talent for a movie about how a company manipulates its algorithms and encourages MSIs (Meaningful Social Interactions) to keep consumers using it longer, which means they see more advertising. If those techniques radicalize some of its users? Oh, well ...
The script weaves together different timelines, bouncing between Haugen (Mikey Madison) and Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) prepping for a Congressional hearing.
Horwitz's storyline follows the "All the President's Men" model, that is if there was a bit of sexual tension between Bob Woodward and his secret source, Deep Throat. My "West Wing"-loving daughter compared the dynamic between Horwitz and Haugen to the one between Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Donna Moos (Janel Moloney) in the early seasons of that Sorkin-created series.
Madison, an Oscar winner for "Anora," is the driver that makes the film work as well as it does. Her Haugen is quirky but smart. Even though Sorkin has her deliver an "I love Facebook, I just want it to reach its full potential" speech at least once too often, she provides the rooting interest the audience needs.
"The Social Reckoning" isn't really a sequel to "The Social Network," which Sorkin also wrote, but his involvement in both makes comparisons inevitable.
Sorkin's dialogue and narrative structure drive both, but Sorkin the director isn't in the same league as David Fincher, who helmed "Social Network." That movie has a visual style that "Reckoning" lacks, and the score by Alexadre Desplat makes zero impression compared to the work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the earlier film.
The two also take very different approaches to Zuckerberg. While he certainly isn't likable in "Network," he's undeniably human. Jesse Eisenberg plays him as a young man who wears every perceived slight (whether it's from an ex-girlfriend or the exclusive Harvard clubs that ignored him) like an open wound, and he craves success mainly so he can rub it in the faces of those who dismissed him.
Strong plays Zuckerberg like a chilly automatron, a man whose wealth and power have insulated him from any slights and any repercussions for his actions. It's an uncanny impression, one that feels more like a particularly vicious "Saturday Night Live" sketch than a fully realized character.
I've thought a lot about "The Social Reckoning" since I saw it Monday night. If I'd written this column late Monday instead of Wednesday morning, it probably would have sounded more positive than it does.
It's hard not to ponder one's relationship with social media after watching it. That said, moviegoers shouldn't feel guilty if they check their social media accounts out of habit as they leave the theater.
"The Social Reckoning" has an official Facebook page. Maybe someone at Sony Pictures has a twisted sense of humor.
Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.