The Social Reckoning

4 outta 5

The Social Reckoning has been positioned by the studio marketing as a “companion piece” to The Social Network but as it’s by the same writer, basically the same title, and it’s about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a sequel. Now, it is as good as The Social Network? Well, no. But The Social Network is one of the best movies of the 21^st Century which is a very high bar to clear. But this is an interesting follow up, focusing on the harm that social media has caused and continuing Zuckerberg’s character arc from Social Network to total toxic narcissism. But Reckoning isn’t as slick as Social Network on a lot of levels. But director and writer Aaron Sorkin delivers a typical script with dialogue that is compelling, witty, very rapid and very talky. Reckoning shows if social media gets engagement, most of the time it means something really bad for humanity. Because hate makes Zuckerberg more money.

In 2019, Frances (Mikey Madison) is a data scientist who works for Facebook who has information that the Facebook algorithm is radicalizing individuals after her formerly progressively liberal friend went ballistic racist. Frances contacts a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, Jeff (Jeremy Allen White), revealing that Facebook gets engagement from hate and spread misinformation, causing people to become radicalized. In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is preparing for a deposition and goes hard on his belief in being a “free speech absolutist,” which means more misinformation and more engagement and more money. But as Frances and Jeff get closer to the truth, the lies on social media pushes folks to become crazier.

The flashback and flash-forward structure was used very effectively in The Social Network. It was a lot tighter too, as jumping back and forth in time during the deposition offered context for what happened in the past. Here the flashback and flash-forward structure just kinda jumps randomly from one era to another. It does eventually payoff when misinformation is a catalyst for the USA’s January 6^th Insurrection. Zuckerberg looks like a deer caught in headlights as his misinformation boosting has caught up to him. That is a good payoff going all the way back to the first film where Zuckerberg thinks he is superior to anyone. A title card at the end of the movie reveals Facebook changing its name to META and that they stopped all fact checking, so whatever lesson he learned didn’t stick for very long.

A big leap here is Jeremy Strong taking over the role of Zuckerberg from Jessie Eisenberg. Apparently, Eisenberg didn’t want to return because being identified with Mark Zuckerberg is pretty horrible. Strong makes Zuckerberg slime impersonating a human being which is tracks with how Zuckerberg has evolved (or devolved) over the last two decades. He doesn’t really look like Zuckerberg or Eisenberg, he almost looks like a 50 year old pretending to be a decade younger. The movie doesn’t really reference the first film, aside from an off the cuff remark about Zuckerberg setting up the Hot or Not website, but it’s hard to not picture how much more powerful it would have been to see Eisenberg again. The line when Strong says he’s not “five years out of a dorm room” would have had much more impact if it had been Eisenberg. But Strong is a decent substitute, showing that Zuckerberg has disdain for everybody’s opinion. When a division points out that Facebook is pushing bad information, he just rushes them through the presentation and shuts the whole division down. The deposition prep has a gaggle of supporting characters trying desperately to do their jobs to make Zuckerberg seem more human and failing. Bill Burr plays member of the legal counsel who actually stands up to Zuckerberg and tells him he can’t make all these horrible decisions without consequences, as Burr is very good at looking incredulous and annoyed.

Madison and White as the whistle-blower and the reporter are actually the main characters of the film. They have a fun dynamic, as Jeff’s inability to understand technology is constantly a source of irritation for Frances as she explains how algorithms and post boosting works. When she is flabbergasted that he doesn’t know tech he says defensively, “Woodward and Bernstein were Metro reporters,” which is a news term she has zero idea what that means. While he thought that Facebook suppressing free speech is the big story, Frances reveals the radicalization of users creates more engagement. Madison shows a woman who is actually kind of lonely and believes in Facebook’s mission of connecting people but she can’t let Facebook keep turning people into lunatics. She gives a very fidgety and sympathetic performance as Madison has a disease that makes her very susceptible to weather which is why she’s wearing gloves and armbands the whole time. When Jeff says he thought it was just a fashion statement she says, “I’m trying to make it work.”

The Social Reckoning doesn’t look as good as Social Network, it isn’t as fast paced and the score is nowhere near the atonal discombobulation Network had. But it is compelling see the endgame of what Zuckerberg created. Maybe in 15 years, Sorkin will write and direct a third Social instalment about Zuckerberg and Artificial Intelligence that, like Reckoning is good but not quite as fantastic as the original.