When Zuckerberg first gets to Silicon Valley, he’s as unworldly as a cloistered monk. Surrounded by pizza boxes and beer cans, and dressed in gray sweats, flip-flops, and a hoodie, he even looks like a monk. But Sean Parker, a hustler of genius, says to him, “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.” And though the hoodie remains, everything else changes. Parker, who foresees the universal success of Facebook, comes off as intelligent but reckless and dissolute—a candy man who brings the goods (venture capital, mainly, but drugs, too). Justin Timberlake, with his charm and his physical dynamism, and with a wicked visionary gleam in his eye, torques the movie even higher. The colors in Jeff Cronenweth’s cinematography change from Harvard crimson to the electric pink of a San Francisco night club. Yet, no matter how quickly the film moves, Fincher, working with the editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, pauses within the fast tempo and lets the emotional power of the moment expand. Relying on nothing more than tiny shifts of emphasis and inflection, the director, to an amazing degree, makes us care about the split between the unyielding Zuckerberg and Saverin, who’s a decent guy but unimaginative and perhaps a little timid. As Saverin, Andrew Garfield has the emotional fluency—the fear, the indignation, and the hurt feelings—that Eisenberg has to suppress. In the legal dispute, a college prank that was once a joke between them is recalled and used as ammunition, and the moment rips what is left of their youth to shreds. “The Social Network” is a linear accelerator that breathes, and Fincher is the one who created the breathing room.

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