★★★★ - EMPIRE
- Concerned by her company’s amplification of outrage and political extremism, Facebook data engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) becomes a whistleblower for Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) -
When we last saw him in The Social Network, Facebook (co)founder Mark Zuckerberg could be seen sitting alone in a legal office, repeatedly clicking refresh to see if his ex-girlfriend had accepted his friend request. If you were expecting The Social Reckoning (same writer: Aaron Sorkin; different director: Aaron Sorkin) to follow that difficult-but-fascinating guy’s two-decade journey/moral erosion from a lonely, youthful tech whizz to an embattled “free-speech absolutist”, then we’re afraid you’re on the wrong site. Despite sharing a writer, two words in the title and one key character (no longer played by Jesse Eisenberg), this isn’t strictly a sequel to David Fincher’s 2010 movie.
Sorkin’s main subject here is not Zuckerberg. He’s now the antagonistic corporate Goliath with little screentime but big scenes (ably handled by Eisenberg’s nasal, buttoned-up understudy Jeremy Strong), in a fresh drama that is less about litigation than investigative political journalism. While there’s a welcome seam of valuing old media and slow news, embodied by a likeably unflappable Jeremy Allen White as reporter Jeff Horwitz, the focus is on Mikey Madison’s Frances Haugen, the employee who blows the whistle.
Similar to Zuckerberg in The Social Network’s early scenes, she’s initially presented as an awkward, often abrasive outsider in a brash and problematic community (the Silicon Valley offices of Facebook subbing for the halls of Harvard). Haugen is a woman on a mission: to address the way Facebook’s algorithm lures users into extremist groups — not to mention Instagram’s impact on the mental health of young women. And it’s a mission that irritates her co-workers and superiors, who dub her a “Cassandra”.
But unlike Zuckerberg, her alienation doesn’t result in an act of vengeance. As the consequences of Facebook’s policies become horrifically apparent in the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021 (partially recreated by Sorkin, though not to the extent he re-staged the 1968 riot in The Trial Of The Chicago 7), Haugen’s uneasy conscience blossoms into selfless heroism. Madison remains brilliantly brittle-yet-empathic throughout, and particularly shines in her ping-pong banter with White.
As you’d expect from Sorkin, this is a dialogue-rich environment, salted with wit, snark and the kind of lines nobody would ever say but we all wish we could. Where the film suffers slightly is in visual and stylistic comparison with its Fincher-programmed predecessor; lacking that director’s verve (not to mention the scoring genius of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), it feels a touch less exciting and somehow smaller, despite its much higher stakes. However, the material is what really matters here, and in the hands of a solid cast, it still makes for a compelling new chapter in a timely story.
- Dan Jolin, EMPIRE
The Social Reckoning is now playing at Light House Cinema!