“The Social Reckoning” Review

When “The Social Reckoning” was announced without David Fincher attached, there was plenty of understandable concern as to the quality downgrade of replacing one of our greatest living filmmakers with Aaron Sorkin directing his own material. While Sorkin’s deficiencies as a director are on display in this film, he is hamstrung by a screenplay that replaces “The Social Network”’s bold vision with obvious moralizing and an unfocused story.

Sorkin utilizes a similar non-linear, dueling timeline structure as in “The Social Network.” In one story, beginning in 2019, Facebook engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) responds to Wall Street Journal tech reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) to confidentially share her concerns over how Facebook users get funneled into extremist groups through Facebook’s algorithm. In the other storyline, in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is receiving media training in advance of a congressional hearing.

The various timelines in “The Social Network” work so well together because the characters reappear in each timeline, allowing the audience to see all of the friendship and betrayal, greed and loneliness that drove each character to a poignant conclusion. In this film, the two storylines may be in conversation with one another, but they are largely disconnected. In fact, Zuckerberg never shares the screen with either of the film’s two protagonists.

The story is riddled with many of Sorkin’s worst, or at least most common, writing tendencies. His characters do less talking than speechifying, delivering op-ed talking points in lieu of real, human conversation, speaking less to one another than they are to the audience. All of the characters are single-minded in their commitment to their jobs, their moral crusades. These tropes can be forgiven if the story itself was more pointed, but the script feels unfocused, as if Sorkin got overwhelmed by the sheer scope of Facebook’s misdeeds. What starts as a relatively contained examination of the social media giant’s role in driving users toward extremism takes detours into Instagram’s impact on teenage girls’ mental health, cartels and human trafficking. Oh, and let’s sprinkle in some January 6th for extra measure.

While “The Social Reckoning” is visually a downgrade from “The Social Network,” the drop in director quality is most evident in the pacing and rhythm, or lack thereof. Both films consist of countless scenes in which characters are just sat in a room, talking, and yet “The Social Network” possessed an exhilarating pace, with the dialogue being fired off at warp speed so a biographical drama felt more like an action movie. Here, the pacing is much more languid, the dialogue delivered with much less sizzle.

The performances as a whole feel unrefined, which isn’t to say any of the acting is bad, just that the characters don’t mesh well together. The characters are neither well developed nor understood; none of them seem like real people as White, Madison and even Strong’s cyborg Zuckerberg feel like variations on the same socially awkward character who struggles to relate to other human beings. None of these people have any hint of an interior life; nor do they have any exterior life beyond the confines of the plot.

Aaron Sorkin wants so badly for “The Social Reckoning” to be a triumphant story of an underdog toppling a corrupt system, delivering the moral reckoning promised in its title. He even ends the film with a celebratory fist pump as inspirational music swells. But we know better. We know that this scandal has come and gone and Mark Zuckerberg still has a seat at the president’s table. I wish it were different but, sadly, that’s not the world we live in and to pretend otherwise, as Sorkin does in this movie, is woefully out of touch.

The Social Reckoning
Rated R for language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 52 minutes.

Director Aaron Sorkin
Writers Aaron Sorkin
Stars Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen
Rating R
Running Time 112 Minutes
Genres Biography, Drama, Thriller