By Amanda Millea

A&E Co-Editor

In a time before friend requests from strangers, before relationship statuses, before people knew what you were doing at every waking moment, there was an idea for a social network that would have all of these features, plus more. The question is who really came up with the idea for this social network? Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a Harvard Undergrad and computer programming genius, claimed to have come up with a social networking site that allowed people all over the world to communicate.

At first, Zuckerberg started small, restricting the social network only to people who attended Harvard. This was where Zuckerberg’s first law suit came into play. The Winklevoss twins (Josh Pence and Armie Hammer) said that Zuckerberg had stolen their network idea, where anyone with a Harvard.edu email address could join. Naturally, the “Winklevii” decide to sue for ownership. Somewhere in the midst of his first law suit, Zuckerberg gets hit with law suit number two, provided by none other than his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). Saverin was the one that provided the originally small company with the money it needed to expand. Saverin was supposed to be a cofounder of the company, originally known as “The Facebook,” but in the expansion process, Zuckerberg and Saverin’s ideas clashed. The clash began when Napster founder, Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) started giving Zuckerberg advice Saverin didn’t necessarily agree with. Eventually, Parker practically pushed Saverin out of the company and off of Zuckerberg’s real life friend list.

This movie was different in the way that it depicted not only one view, but three—three perspectives and three completely different truths to a story everyone assumed to be one-sided. Screen writer Aaron Sorkin adapted the screen play from Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires. Sorkin did an excellent job leaving most of this story to the imagination. The different perspectives leave the mind wondering where the truth lies, and will have people talking, even after the movie ends.

“The Social Network” takes a deeper look into the social networking world most teens visit on a daily basis. After the movie, the first thing I did was get on my Facebook. The movie opened my eyes to how truly addictive Facebook is. The movie itself proved to be equally addictive. Although it seemed long at times, the audience is immediately invested in the plot of the film. When the movie was over, I had mixed feelings about the actual ending. I was glad it was over because it was a rather long film, but the plot still seemed like it had so much more to it. By the end, my opinion on who had invented Facebook had not changed. Facebook was created solely by Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg’s character says it best, “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.” If Zuckerberg was lying, all I have to say is well played, Zuckerberg. Well played.