Yes, I know, I was supposed to have watched this movie 15 years ago. But I didn’t do that. Better late than never — right? I’m referring, of course, to the 2010 film The Social Network, the biopic written by Aaron Sorkin presenting a somewhat fictionalized version of Mark Zuckerberg and his creation of Facebook.

As with A Complete Unknown, you can’t expect a fictionalized biopic to be historically accurate. The details of course have to be altered to fit the requirements of a movie. But the gist should still be faithful to real life. In this case, the main message that I took away from watching The Social Network was that Mark Zuckerberg is a jerk.

That isn’t news, you’ll say. But was it news in 2010, when the movie was made? I don’t know, since memory is clouded by a 15-year period of news by and of billionaires and software developers. But I think we sort of knew it then — or at least we suspected.

Anyway, the movie is well-done and entertaining. As a Harvard alum, I’ve been asked how accurate the Harvard scenes are, and I have to respond that it’s hard to say; my subculture within Harvard was very different from Zuckerberg’s, partly because he is 37 years younger than I am. In particular, I had absolutely no contact with Final Clubs, Harvard’s rough equivalent of fraternities (“rough” because even Final Club members still had to live in dorms). Drinking was also not part of my life at the time, but it’s prominent in the movie. I’m sure I was just leading a sheltered life. In any case, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should do so.

Categories: Movies & (occasionally) TV, Technology