THE SOCIAL RECKONING

The Social Reckoning has an important story to tell about the role of disinformation, corporate greed and control of information, and social media in today’s society, making the intent behind the film worthy, but with lacklustre direction from Aaron Sorkin and a script that fails to deliver his signature knock out writing, unfortunately has the film as a whole buckle under the weight of what it tries to accomplish.

From the second that The Social Reckoning was announced, it always faced an uphill battle having to follow what many consider to be one of the greatest films of this century to date: The Social Network. It is a major discredit to The Social Reckoning to call it a companion piece to The Social Network, as apart from being about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it is its own entirely independent story about the “The Facebook Files” articles published by the Wall Street Journal and the leak of internal documents showing the harmful societal effects that were ignored by Zuckerberg to maximize profits and platform usage. It is an important story that sees Sorkin returning to the world of Facebook, but it is a massive narrative undertaking for a film to tackle given the amount of information that needs to be processed by the screenplay, which unfortunately results in The Social Reckoning from capturing the urgency it requires that not even a talented lead cast of Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison and Jeremy Strong can salvage.

There is no denying that the story Sorkin wants to tell with The Social Reckoning is noble, timely and urgent, as with the rampant disinformation being spread on social media, it’s important to remind individuals how we got to such a point and who is culpable for this. But not even the best intentions can prevent the film from buckling under the weight of the volume of information that Sorkin has to convey to viewers in under two hours. Split into two storylines, one starting in 2019 as Jeff Horwitz begins investigating Facebook for the Wall Street Journal, and the other in 2021 as Zuckerberg is preparing for a grand jury hearing, that while they are connected, it feels like there are two distinct films occurring at once. With Horwitz and Facebook whistle blower Frances Haugen, the screenplay spends its time disclosing the pertinent information about Facebook’s practices, the harmful effects of social media, and the dangerous amplification of hateful rhetoric online, resulting in what feels like an onslaught of information akin to a Wikipedia article. It is exposition heavy, not capturing that signature slick Sorkin writing that can make such volumes of information intellectually stimulating on screen. Instead the writing is more concerned with introducing key information to progress the story forward, forgetting to create a riveting journalistic investigation narrative about the discovery of this information, holding the entire film back from what it so desperately wants to be.

When focusing on Zuckerberg and his crisis team, Sorkin has better success with his writing and direction. The quickly paced dialogue is engaging, creating more dynamic moments that allow the characters to come to life on screen rather than being a slave to the facts that have to be conveyed that is experienced in the other timeline. Aided by the real life events that Facebook's policies directly helped to create that are brought up, there is an undeniable tension about the horrors of social media that our society faces that permeates this timeline, selling the urgency of the problem facing our world. Though sadly, it is almost immediately undone by a revelation of a key fact to move the film back to Horwitz’s investigation. There is no subtlety in these transitions, removing any intelligence from the writing and dramatic stakes from the journalistic investigation as the audience is told what Horwitz is about to discover, removing the dramatic effect of its discovery by him moments later.

Typically, a Sorkin screenplay is the dream of any actor and leads to some of the best performances of the year. Despite a stacked cast led by Madison, White and Strong, the performances of The Social Reckoning lack the might the material calls for. Madison and White are both strong actors, but as their characters are the two building the investigative look at Facebook’s disturbing actions, the moments of the screenplay they are given are largely dumps of information akin to a Wikipedia article to convey the pertinent information to the audience. It sadly gives them little dramatic material to work with, never fully deserving of their true talents but they each play their parts to the best that the dialogue allows them to.

Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg like a petulant child, which may not be far from the truth, but it’s all done with a single emotional state and unnatural awkwardness that makes Zuckerberg feel like a robotic iteration of Succession's Kendall Roy that misses the unfascinating fascination of his extreme intellect. It sadly has the effect of making his performance more annoying than it should be, never for a second nearing the complex individual that Jesse Eisenberg previously created in the role, but luckily the majority of his scenes are opposite Wunmi Mosaku and Bill Burr who are both excellent. Burr is the clear standout of the film as a former member of Facebook’s legal counsel team Charlie, delivering Sorkin’s dialogue with spirited energy that creates exciting moments of friction opposite Strong that lean into Burr’s confrontational comedic abilities as he becomes a worthy adversary for the slippery Zuckerberg. Though her dialogue is less flashy than Burr’s, Mosaku creates a riveting character that explores the unsettling truth that her job of helping Facebook survive its crisis is perpetuating a much larger problem, playing into direct contradiction to Burr’s Charlie who left after discovering this, leaving Mosaku to grapple with the consequences of Raya’s actions. It’s a quieter performance, but Mosaku plays it with such conviction that it is impossible not to be mesmerized by her performance when she is on screen.

With Fincher not returning for this sequel, any director had incredibly big shoes to fill as Fincher’s direction and stylistic approach to The Social Network is unparalleled. Even with accepting the fact that this film was not going to measure up to the standard of its predecessor, there is no denying that Sorkin’s direction of The Social Reckoning leaves a lot to be desired. While the prologue chapter of the film has a palpable tension and unnerving energy that starts the film off with great promise, everything that follows never comes close to the atmosphere he created in this scene. The majority of the film is dimly shot with little flair; when paired with still camera work that makes the film feel lifeless, the visual presentation of the story becomes as uninteresting as the laundry list of information that the screenplay discloses to viewers. Alan Baumgarten’s editing provides no stylistic flavouring to the story, displaying the scenes with little creativity, while Alexandre Desplat’s is unremarkable and never for a second energizes that important story on screen. All in all it is a rather bland portrayal of such a bombshell story, that truly makes The Social Reckoning feel like a Sunday afternoon television film rather than a full blown big budget drama that the subject matter requires.

It’s a shame that despite Aaron Sorkin’s strong messaging and good intentions are going to fall on deaf ears, most likely with audiences logging onto Instagram or Facebook as they walk out of the theatre despite what they just watched unfold on screen, causing The Social Reckoning to fail to meet its noble intentions. There is no denying that underneath the technical shortcomings of the film and the at times uninspired dialogue there is a worthy story to be told that in the hands of a stronger director the crippling weight of the information heavy screenplay could have been softened to not only give the talented cast better material to work with, but resulted in a far more engaging film than what Aaron Sorkin managed to deliver here. In spite of the great supporting performances of Bill Burr and Wunmi Mosaku, The Social Reckoning is bogged down by its information heavy storytelling and more often than not lacklustre direction and dialogue, resulting in an important story being conveyed in an ultimately forgettable film.