Melena Ryzik’s seasonal column The Carpetbagger is back online after the usual hiatus. Ryzik took over when David Carr left a few years back for bigger and better things. It’s great to have Ryzik back but one wishes she won’t just get her Oscar sources from Ye Old Grey Lady. The problem, of course, is that this article by Michael Cieply, which was completely off base in so many ways continues to float around out there. You wouldn’t necessarily know that it wasn’t an accurate picture, in any way, of how the Oscar race looked then, or now, unless you, like I, have your face submerged in Oscar 24/7. But Ryzik drives those narratives forward nonetheless (this, my friends, is the crafty work of a certain clever marketing team – and hats off to them, but I certainly want to try to set the record straight):
“Will ‚ÄúThe Social Network‚Äù ride its early wave of positive reviews and zeitgeisty momentum, only to fizzle, √† la ‚ÄúUp in the Air‚Äù?”
Will the billion-dollar grossing “Toy Story 3,” the final act of a beloved series, which has the considerable backing of Disney and Pixar, pull a “Lord of the Rings” to have a real shot at best picture?
Since they insist upon trying to make The Social Network into Up in the Air, I have no choice but to argue with them – being that I believe The Social Network to be the best film of 2010 (though there are two films that are very close, Toy Story 3 is not one of them). Here is how the two films are different:
The most glaring truth here is that this comparison has come from one source. It is the best kind of whisper campaign because it simply floats an idea that then become a notion that eventually becomes a full blown thought.
Here are a few key ways they are different (and, in fact, there isn’t a single thing about them that is similar except that they are both movies in the Oscar race):
Up in the Air was being touted as the defacto Best Picture winner long before it was ever reviewed by mainstream critics, and before it was seen by a good many who were predicting it. Moreover, there are only a couple of Oscar pundits — a small handful — who believe The Social Network will go all the way. That’s very different from Up in the Air, which had many backing it before Avatar came along. This, because no one ever thought The Hurt Locker could win (except a small handful of us). But let’s dig a little deeper.
Up in the Air is a fairly light, ultimately useless film adaptation of a poorly written novel about a manchild who refuses to grow up until he meets a girl who uses him for sex — no one would ever use George Clooney for sex; the universe rolled its eyes in disgust at the notion and decided to curse the film with zero Oscar wins as a result (kidding) — Clooney was miscast for two reasons – 1) if you’re going to sell us the idea that he will get the girl, he better get the girl, and 2) he is simply too good looking for that not to be his leading characteristic as a human being. As they say in Almost Famous, “your looks are becoming a problem.” Clooney’s looks must be dealt with in a way that makes sense. Willy Loman he could never be.
The Social Network is anything but light, is based on a true story, and involves a medium we all use every day, or as I like to say when the latest friend finds me there, ruining our lives on a daily basis by bringing us all closer together. It is a dark comedy, a tragedy almost but it never loses its main thrust of skewering its cast, of the like we haven’t seen since All About Eve, or Jason Reitman’s much better film, Thank You For Smoking. Even still, the sublime Social Network is vividly directed, written by a mad genius driven to define our era with a judgmental eye, and perfectly acted by the well cast Jesse Eisenberg who regards us smugly because he knows he has us by the balls both in terms of what Facebook accomplished, and in our attempt to feel superior to him because we might be a lot of things but we are most certainly not “the nerd.”
Up in the Air is tightly directed but disconnected from reality: there is no there there. Though it has a somewhat interesting ending, the entire thing rests on whether or not we care about him: we don’t care that much, it turns out. We don’t care because the film is telling us to. If we’re going to care at all, we should care because of the circumstances of the character. As it is, who could ever feel sorry for George Clooney because he finally got dumped by a woman? The Social Network doesn’t really ask us to care; it asks much more of us: it asks us to think about who we are.
The Social Network is the best work David Fincher has ever offered up, lean, thrilling, with the kind of ending you don’t really forget.¬† Fincher comes from a long and somewhat unconventional career as one of the most promising directors whose potential was never quite realized (although some might say Fight Club and Zodiac accomplish this — to me, it is realized here, finally). Reitman has a couple of films under his belt and has yet to take the kinds of risks Fincher has. He is more of a writer than a director anyway: Fincher is pure director. He needs a writer who is his equal in his realm, which Sorkin is.
Up in the Air didn’t overwhelm at the box office as expected because it was being sold as a romantic comedy and it didn’t deliver on that level. The Social Network made almost $90 million with an October release date, and hit the bullseye because it delivers on what it sells.
The studios are different, the campaigns are different, the themes are different, the quality of filmmaking is different, the pace is different, the message is different, the look is different, the score is different.
They sold Up in the Air as a timely, zeitgeisty movie when in fact, it wasn’t really about the times in which WE live. The Social Network is only zeitgeisty because human nature, millions of years old, is on display. As Sorkin said, it could be a movie about the invention of the toaster — it is partly “the Facebook movie,” that is perhaps what drove people to the theater. But it is also, like All About Eve before it, about what we do, how we do it, and how high a price we have to pay in order to do it. It is a film that would do well if released in any decade, but it may do exceptionally well since the AMPAS seems to be on a 1970s-like streak lately of recognizing great filmmaking.
The hype around Up in the Air made it impossible for the film ever to live up to that hype: it had nowhere to go but down. The Social Network delivers the goods. The hype is based on something substantial. It has plenty of room to climb.
But before you start in with your accusations that we are hyping The Social Network – I’ll say it for you. Any film this good will always get the backing of Awards Daily. Always. Be it Black Swan, 127 Hours, True Grit, Inception, Winter’s Bone, etc.
And speaking of great filmmaking, in the final analysis, there is only one movie that The Social Network has to worry about this year and it’s name is True Grit.