Haran Iyer In an era where online misinformation, radicalisation, and toxicity run rampant, The Social Reckoning had an avenue to stand out as relevant and profound. A film based on the publishing of the Facebook Files and the revelations they brought to light offers unlimited thematic potential. How has the rise of social media impacted traditional journalism? How are these algorithms actually impacting current events and politics? How would the day-to-day employees at these companies react to revelations about the harm their platforms are causing? How would the key decision-makers, whose names are so often in the spotlight, react to how they’re perceived by the masses? These are just a few possible directions the film could have taken, and despite his recent track record, I was curious to see which direction writer-director Aaron Sorkin would take. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed by The Social Reckoning. While offering glimpses of more interesting subject matter, the film instead opts for a shallow, exhausting narrative that fails to take the audience seriously at all. Not only does it create a very off-putting and self-righteous feel, but it also completely fails to replicate what made The Social Network, a film to which it is so desperate to attach itself, so remarkable in the first place.
While it doesn’t feel fair to compare the two, doing so highlights many shortcomings in The Social Reckoning. Given that the cast and crew have labelled the film as a successor or companion to The Social Network, I do believe comparisons are warranted, and the film itself inadvertently reinforces these connections. Within the film, there are references to moments in the previous entry. I understand the argument that these moments are all based on true events, but they are so specific and unrelated to the broader context that they feel incredibly jarring and off-putting. These moments highlight how, despite clearly intending to connect itself to The Social Network, The Social Reckoning is ultimately a very different (and inferior) film, and for me this is best reflected in the script and how it’s structured. Much like its predecessor, the film’s narrative is delivered in a nonlinear structure. However, unlike its predecessor, the structure doesn’t really make any sense, feeling very awkward and artificial. In The Social Network, the nonlinear narrative is crucial to how the film conveys itself. It automatically eliminates the effects of dramatic irony, reframing the story from being about what happens to, instead, why everything happens. It allows the film’s emotional conflicts to take centre stage, and the contrast between the two timelines brilliantly establishes what the founding and early growth of Facebook cost. In The Social Reckoning, the structure, if anything, harms the film. The film desperately tries to build stakes surrounding Jeff Horowitz (Jeremy Allen White) and Frances Haugen’s (Mikey Madison) collaboration, which in itself is questionable given we know that the Facebook Files were successfully published. However, the film also undermines these stakes with its other timeline, which establishes early on that the Files are about to be published. This really kept me from engaging with the film, a problem compounded by other issues with the script and Sorkin’s direction.
A major takeaway I formed quite early when watching The Social Reckoning was how sorely David Fincher’s direction is missed. Sorkin’s direction is incredibly unfocused and messy, and the film never settles on a particular tone or rhythm because it’s constantly trying to shoehorn in different styles of camerawork, editing, and colour palettes. A particular example that sticks out like a sore thumb is framing certain flashback scenes using a black-and-white filter, a decision that feels so out of place that it perfectly encapsulates my broader feelings about how disconcerting the direction is. This messy nature trickles down to other aspects of the film too, with Alexandre Desplat’s score being a notable example. While it’s reasonably powerful in isolated moments, it comes across as confused and disjointed when put together, feeling misplaced in multiple instances, just like the direction. Not only is Fincher sorely missed for his strengths as a filmmaker, but his absence also allows for Sorkin’s worst tendencies to bleed into the film. Parts of the film’s dialogue are laughably bad and sound borderline inhuman, which kills any stakes or tension that it was trying to build during dramatic moments. This directly links to the film’s inability to naturally deliver exposition, and the only reason why most of this is watchable is because of the strengths in Madison and Allen White’s performances and their strong chemistry. Fincher’s absence, when considering his filmography, is also a potential reason why the film goes down such an uninteresting route. Sorkin’s script offers glimpses of far more promising directions it could have taken, but these moments are merely acknowledgements and background filler instead of exploring genuine themes.
The natural starting point for The Social Reckoning’s missed opportunities is its portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong). It is worth prefacing this by saying that I thought Strong’s performance was actually fairly good. He captures the voice and mannerisms of modern-day Zuckerberg pretty accurately, even if they were slightly overdone at points, and I believe that Sorkin’s script, not Strong, is accountable for the shortcomings of this portrayal. To best illustrate my issues with this iteration of Zuckerberg, I have to compare it against Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal in The Social Network. What made it so resonant was how it shows that the men who created Facebook were driven by emotional, personal, and banal instincts. Eisenberg’s performance is so good not only because of how he portrayed Zuckerberg’s mannerisms, but also because he captures his insecurity and petulance in a way that so powerfully humanises a man who quickly became a modern myth. Strong’s portrayal in The Social Reckoning lacks this nuance, instead framing him as a ruthless, emotionless, borderline-evil CEO our protagonists must stop. It’s such a frustrating decision because it minimises any attempt at commentary on the impact of social media, as well as any meaningful exploration of Zuckerberg. There’s a moment in the film where he briefly mentions his and his family’s awareness of how the public perceives him. It is the only time we see some humanity and vulnerability in Strong’s portrayal, and it screamed of being a huge, missed opportunity. The premise of a film about Zuckerberg’s (and his close circle, by extension) reaction to the revelations of the Facebook Files, his general public perception, and how his platform impacts society is so fascinating. While the film actually tries to explore the latter point, it does so in a shallow manner that is scared to actually convey anything of substance. If anything, Zuckerberg feels quite removed from other aspects of the film, and not only is this shallowness deeply unsatisfying and disappointing, but it actively harms the film’s attempts to explore other themes.
Through its weak portrayal of Zuckerberg, The Social Reckoning unintentionally creates a domino effect, actively undermining every subsequent theme and avenue it attempts to explore. Most notably, the film’s attempts to explore the impact of social media suffer greatly, presenting yet another missed opportunity that isn’t capitalised on. An underrated strength of The Social Network was its subtle commentary about Facebook itself as a platform. By exploring both the motivations of its creators and how users interact with it, the film brilliantly presents Facebook as a platform that caters only to our most superficial and basest instincts. This had even more potential for deeper exploration in The Social Reckoning, since by the time of the film’s events, social media had become an engine for online misinformation and radicalisation. Within this setting, there is great potential to explore how social media has ultimately become a platform where perpetrators exploit and weaponise those same impulses. Unfortunately, The Social Reckoning lacks any of this nuance. By framing Zuckerberg as a villainous mastermind behind everything, it absolves individuals who use these platforms maliciously of any form of blame, rejecting the notion that social media is ultimately a distorted reflection of its users. It suggests that the faults of Facebook and its contemporaries are entirely attributable to those who run it, ignoring the inherent flaws baked into the concept of a social networking platform.
This rhetoric also weakens the film’s characterisation of one of its main protagonists, Frances Haugen. Through her uncovering of the Facebook Files, Haugen’s transformation from reluctant informant to fully-fledged whistleblower is definitely satisfying, but it ultimately concludes on a sour note because of how one-sided her development is. While the film does a good job exploring how she reckons with the revelations she uncovers, its treatment of her eventual testimony as both the natural solution and a victory lap invalidates the other side of her storyline, where she sees the societal impact of social media. The film includes several moments where she witnesses firsthand how users are negatively using or impacted by social media, but these moments merely serve to raise the stakes that build urgency and push her towards becoming an informant, rather than actually having her consider the actual structural issues behind Facebook. It’s incredibly disappointing, not only because of how it barely engages with topical issues and events, but also because Haugen, defined early in the film by her belief in the positives of Facebook, offers the perfect perspective to view this. Though not to the same extent, this lack of engagement also undermines Horowitz’s character, who’s defined by his distaste for social media, specifically how it has negatively impacted traditional journalism. The Social Reckoning does illustrate the importance of investigative journalism, but it doesn’t truly engage with this theme, and while I understand that it needs a different focus altogether, it still represents a missed opportunity. By failing to explore any of the themes associated with Zuckerberg, Horowitz, or Haugen, The Social Reckoning restricts itself to a noticeably generic narrative, one that is forgettable and underwhelming.
As it approaches its conclusion, The Social Reckoning finally attempts to actively engage with its political backdrop, but it handles it so poorly that it has lowered my opinion of the film the more I think about it. Taking away accountability from institutions such as governments and law enforcement is dangerous in itself given current politics, but the smug, overexaggerated manner it’s delivered in makes it even worse. Through the association with its predecessor, the film is desperate to prove its importance, despite having nothing meaningful to say. The Social Network never felt the need to overtly state its importance, because you feel its urgency and value throughout its runtime. The Social Reckoning is unable to replicate this, so it instead resorts to directly calling back to its predecessor through thinly veiled moments where it feels like the writers are directly telling us that this is more important. Compounded by odd directorial quirks and clichés, the film never really feels truly grounded in our present world, and it screams of Sorkin’s filmmaking being both outdated and out-of-touch. This leads me to something that, if anything, the film achieved quite ironically. Given it’s a film that’s about our present day as well as the most influential individuals and institutions within it, it is remarkable (and damning) that The Social Reckoning feels entirely pointless.
