“The Social Reckoning” is an unbearable display of Aaron Sorkin’s worst impulses. A sequel to the 2010 film “The Social Network,” written by Sorkin and directed by the great David Fincher, Sorkin returned to pen this screenplay and to sit in the director’s chair, much to its detriment.
The film stars Mikey Madison as real-life Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, Jeremy Allen White as Wall Street Journal writer Jeff Horwitz and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Taking place from 2019 to 2021, the film explores the release of the Facebook Files.
Although almost no actors return from “The Social Network,” “The Social Reckoning” makes the baffling decision to position itself as a sequel to one of the most acclaimed films of the early 2010s. The title and occasional musical cues are all that carry over from the original film, however, the two could not be any more different.
The original was a corporate drama that took vast liberties in its retelling of a true story to deepen the character work, because who cares if Zuckerberg gets a didactically accurate biopic? His life outside his resume is relatively normal.
This film is a formulaic investigative newspaper drama. If you have seen “Spotlight,” “All The President’s Men” or the final season of “The Wire,” you have basically seen “The Social Reckoning.” There’s none of the narrative complexity of the dual-frame in the first film. This sequel is a straightforward press thriller with no surprises or interesting tricks up its sleeve.
To be curt, Strong cannot hold a candle to Eisenberg, as it feels like he is in a constant awkward shuffle between an impression of Zuckerberg’s infamous 2019 congressional hearing and Eisenberg’s performance from 2010. He doesn’t pick a lane, making the performance very “uncanny valley” and hard to take seriously.
Strong is a fine actor, but this role is an ill fit for him. Apparently, Sorkin gave him free rein to method act to his heart’s content but simultaneously told Madison, an Oscar winner, to rein in her performance. White, yet another wasted talent, feels aimless here, like he’s not being given much direction.
The worst part of this film is undoubtedly Sorkin’s input. His political dramas have always had a smug air of superiority to them, like they are written by someone quite proud of himself and his own intellect.
Sorkin’s shtick is rhythmic, fast-paced back-and-forth patter dialogue, which can sometimes be fun. However, he has an insufferable tendency to make his protagonists unrealistically smart fast-talkers, opposite smug, self-righteous tools who get killed with words. It’s a writing style that feels predicated on shower arguments. “The Newsroom” and “The West Wing” are some of the worst offenders of this.
“The Social Network” might be my favorite thing Sorkin has written. For once, the smartest person in the room in a Sorkin script is the least likable. This says nothing about how self-aggrandizing his politics can be in his work. This is the same guy who turned noted anarchist Abbie Hoffman into a bleeding-heart liberal in “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
While the political messaging in Sorkin’s dramas tends to be rather shallow, this one feels especially strange because, although it is his most timely film, it feels like one of his more dated efforts. The script is so formulaic, and the talented cast goes straight to the dumpster here with flat characterization.
Fincher’s absence is the least of this sequel’s problems. It is one of the most bland and riskless dramas of the past few years that adds nothing to the conversation about social media content moderation that hasn’t been widely known since the breaking of the story four years ago.
