The Social Reckoning
Review by Mark Woodring
Fun fact: I never watched The Social Network, the 2010 film also written by Aaron Sorkin about the creation of Facebook.
Mostly because back then I didn’t really care for Jesse Eisenberg, and he’s still an actor I need to take in measured doses.
Lucky for me, he doesn’t appear in The Social Reckoning, the great Jeremy Strong does.
I consider that a heck of an upgrade for Mark Zuckerberg.
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, then listen as he and Ryan discuss the film further. Remember, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
2 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis:
Follows Frances Haugen, a young Facebook engineer, who enlisted the help of Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to blow the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets.
The synopsis doesn’t lie. The Social Reckoning is about Francis Haugen, though the trailers might make you think it’s about Jeff Horwitz, the reporter.
Most of what we see in this film is already known; it isn’t an expose of Facebook’s (or Mark Zuckerberg’s) wrongdoings. Everything Aaron Sorkin presents us came out in the articles and Senate hearings that happened around the same time.
What had been anecdotally known to be true, that the digital equivalent of the old newspaper adage “if it bleeds, it leads” was the primary consideration for “coverage.”
In Facebook’s vernacular, “coverage” becomes “engagement” or “interaction.” The biggest difference is the scale and speed of the platform’s reach.
Another argument Sorkin’s script focuses on is the still-ongoing battle regarding “Section 230,” which provides the protections from liability for Facebook and every other platform, as they are still not considered “publishers,” which would open them up to legal fallout (beyond that which has already hit them).
Zuckerberg being Zuckerberg, when the fan is finally coated with enough feces and he is forced to either defend his company’s policy of not fact-checking political ads or to start to do so chooses a different path: Facebook will fact-check nothing at all.
While this would seem to support his repeated refrain of being a First Amendment advocate, it still leaves unanswered the question I have yet to hear anyone actually make:
If Facebook is not a Publisher but a Platform under Section 230, how does the fact they have an algorithm in place to recommend, aka “market,” certain content to individual users? That simple fact should immediately move Facebook/Instagram/Meta firmly into the “Publisher” category, shouldn’t it?
Regardless, I am not a lawyer, so I’ll finish with this:
The script is a solid, if unoriginal, work, not telling us anything new but providing a compelling series of events. both Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong both turn in solid performances, even if Strong’s Zuckerberg feels a bit TOO robotic, even compared to Zuck’s actual behavior.
Mikey Madison recently won the Oscar for best actress (which I fundamentally disagreed with), but no matter how you feel about that, her performance here surpasses that one by orders of magnitude for my taste, and while I personally don’t feel like The Social Reckoning is a serious awards contender, I’m sure it will garner some chatter based on Sorkin and Madison’s names.
But that’s me.
The Social Reckoning hits theaters Friday, October 9, and stars Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Wunmi Mosaku, Bill Burr, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen, and Anna Lambe.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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