The screenwriter and director Aaron Sorkin is fascinated by the dial-shift moments of history; the kind of seismic events that permanently reshape the cultural and political landscape. This is what drew him to the early days of Facebook: his Oscar-winning screenplay for David Fincher’s The Social Network captured the simmering tensions and rivalry between the creators of the social media platform that had already, by the film’s release in 2010, revolutionised the way society connected. And it’s what draws him back to the subject once again, with The Social Reckoning, a propulsive investigative drama, written and directed by Sorkin, that examines the ever-expanding reach and insidious influence of Facebook and its parent company, Meta.
You wonder if the Sorkin of the simpler days of The Social Network had an inkling of the immense capacity for harm afforded by an addictive tool for disseminating information (and misinformation) into the brains of the masses? Did any of us fully grasp it then? Certainly, there’s a change in the temperature and tone of this film. While the earlier movie was a breezy, sharp-witted comedy drama with a keen sense of the absurdity of its key characters, its follow-up has reached the conclusion that much about Meta – and in particular Mark Zuckerberg (played with a chilling, reptilian stillness by Jeremy Strong) – is no longer a laughing matter. That’s not to say the film is without humour: it’s a Sorkin script, after all. Like all his writing, it is peppered with quirks and zingers, delivered at a screwball pace.
His route back into the continuing Facebook story is through the real-life data scientist Frances Haugen (an excellent Mikey Madison, all serrated edges and impatience), an employee in Facebook’s civic integrity team who, when we meet her at the picture’s opening, is becoming alarmed by the company’s practices. Her attempts to raise concerns are shut down by colleagues and superiors (to be fair, her intensity, coupled with the thick wad of flashcards she brandishes, might well be off-putting). So when the Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) speculatively gets in touch, Frances reaches out with caution.
It’s an enjoyably abrasive relationship from the outset. Jeff is a gifted political reporter but knows almost nothing about technology; he can’t even work out his rented car’s satnav (which almost costs him the job before he’s been hired). Frances decides that, at best, he’s a luddite and, at worst, an irredeemable dunce. What’s more, she takes every opportunity to tell him so. The dialogue is crisp, eloquent and very obviously written; Madison and White do their best to claim the words for their characters but the main voice we hear is Sorkin’s. How you feel about this will depend on where you stand on the balance between authenticity and the showy, polished entertainment value of the screenplay. For me, the zesty verbal parrying elevates a film that otherwise might have featured too many stagnant shots of people frowning at computer screens.
Sorkin takes a deliberately old-school approach to this narrative about the uncharted new frontiers of the tech industry. The frisson between Jeff and Frances nods to quick-witted 1940s romcoms such as His Girl Friday, while a sly allusion to Frank Capra positions the story in the tradition of the idealistic everyman up against a corrupt, powerful elite. Then there’s Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men, a more obvious reference point that gets a shout-out in the screenplay as well as what looks like a visual cue in the production design. (The blocky patterns of ceiling lights call to mind that film’s Washington Post newsroom.)
Comparisons to The Social Network are inevitable and, in many ways, this movie suffers by them. It does not have the original’s punchy impact and, since anyone with their eyes and ears open will know about Horwitz’s Pulitzer prize-winning reporting on Meta and Haugen’s testimony to Congress, is not as compelling a story. Still, its cautionary tale bears repeating, not least as a reminder to every now and then step away from our screens.
— Observer