THE SOCIAL NETWORK
An absorbing morality tale about ambition, betrayal, and the cost of success.
Should You Watch It?
This is one of the best movies of its year: absorbing, sometimes funny, superbly acted, and brilliantly directed. Its penetrating morality tale captures the spirit of the age without becoming an anti-capitalist diatribe. The film’s central warning is clear: people who mistreat their friends and business partners may end up with no friends at all.
The cost is substantial. The story includes gratuitous lewd content, party scenes that some viewers may find too inviting, drug references, and plenty of strong foul language. Its historical depictions are also disputed.
If you are an adult or older teenager able to engage those concerns thoughtfully, this is worth seeing for its craft and moral insight. For family viewing, choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESAt Harvard, computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg wants to find a way into the university’s social elite. After an argument with his girlfriend, he creates an online prank that quickly overwhelms Harvard’s computer system.
Soon, Mark and his friend Eduardo Saverin are building a social networking website that spreads from campus to campus. But an idea borrowed from other students, a clever and allegedly sleazy Internet guru, and growing business success put the friends on a collision course.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is an exceptional film, and the source review calls it one of the year’s best. It is fascinating and impressive as a behind-the-scenes look at one of the Internet’s biggest phenomena.
The acting is superb, and the direction is brilliant. Told partly in flashback, the drama offers thought-provoking themes and an incisive morality tale about ambition, friendship, betrayal, and success. Its disputed depiction of historical events remains a significant qualification.
The Worldview
The film presents a light morality tale with pro-capitalist content. It does not condemn business success itself. Instead, it questions what success is worth when ambition is pursued through stealing intellectual property, deceit, envy, revenge, and the mistreatment of friends and business partners.
Its strongest moral insight is also its central irony: a company built around making friends may leave its founder with none. The protagonist’s success does not erase the damage he causes, and the final moments suggest that he is still wondering whether what he has done has been worth it.
The film also includes a hedonistic college-party atmosphere, with drinking, sexualized behavior, marijuana, and cocaine. It is noncommittal about some of this conduct, though it portrays Sean Parker as a worse villain than the protagonist. The Facebook owner disputes some of the movie’s negative portrayal, and the film may have revised some history.
Scripture warns that gaining the world cannot compensate for losing what matters most: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Light morality tale with pro-capitalist content, though one of the movie’s messages is against mistreating one’s business partners and friends, which happens a lot in this business story, plus some history may have been revised and some hedonistic pagan behavior show, including brief homosexual content when two female coeds are shown kissing at a wild college party; about 37 obscenities (including up to three “f” words), six strong profanities, four light profanities, and an obscene gesture; some sexual comments, implied fornication in one scene, suggestive dancing between two girls in underwear and one guy and two girls in underwear at college party, college students shown playing strip poker at college party with one female co-ed in bra, and two unknown female coeds shown kissing during a college party; no graphic salacious nudity but some upper male nudity and female coeds in underwear while playing strip poker and suggestively dancing; alcohol use and drunkenness in a college party atmosphere, plus drinking in nightclub; girl smokes marijuana bong and people snort cocaine off girl’s bare stomach (she’s in a bra); and, stealing intellectual property, treating close friend badly, deceit, envy, and revenge ends in a couple lawsuits, plus story told where a man was accused of “animal cannibalism” by animal rights activists when he unthinkingly feeds a live chicken some chicken meat.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The film connects success with the loss of friendship. What does Jesus say is the value of gaining the world while losing your soul?
Mark 8:36 · 1 Timothy 6:9–10Mark and Eduardo’s partnership is damaged by deceit and betrayal. What does Scripture require of people who work together?
Ephesians 4:25 · Colossians 3:9The characters pursue status, influence, and money. How can ambition become sinful, and what would godly ambition look like?
Philippians 2:3–4 · 1 Corinthians 10:31The story leaves its protagonist considering whether his choices were worth it. How should a person examine the fruit of his decisions?
Galatians 6:7–8 · Psalm 139:23–24The Final Word
This is superbly acted, brilliantly directed, and morally stimulating. It is also lewd, profane, and unsuitable for children or young teens. For discerning adults and older teenagers, WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For a cleaner family night, see.
