The Social Reckoning film review — Facebook sequel is Jaws if the shark ate everyone and kept swimming

Last time we saw Mark Zuckerberg, he was grimly waiting on a Facebook friend request. We in this context are movie audiences, that last encounter coming with The Social Network — director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin’s barbed account of a boy prince of tech, played by Jesse Eisenberg.

The year was 2010. Prehistory. For Zuckerberg, so much still lay ahead, from allegations that Facebook enabled the genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to the embarrassment of failed 3D virtual world the Metaverse, while extensive research has suggested deep harms from Meta products. And now, after it all, his personal wealth is reported to be more than 60 times greater than it was back then.

It leaves a lot to catch up with in The Social Reckoning, a hacky, frustrating sequel written and directed by Sorkin. Events are pared back to a crunch point. In 2019, we meet Frances Haugen, strait-laced Facebook data scientist. In 2021, she testifies to Congress about the company profiting from misinformation. The movie mostly takes place between. Haugen is played by Mikey Madison, an Oscar winner for Anora. Jeremy Allen White co-stars as Jeff Horwitz of the Wall Street Journal, to whom she first brings word of algorithmic wrongdoing.

Nope, no Zuckerberg yet. As befits his status and a grievously cheesy film, he enters late. In place of Eisenberg, we now have Jeremy Strong — magnetic, meticulous and always visibly himself, giving a performance. But then, this Zuck is putting on a show as well, preparing for his own congressional hearing.

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If social media has made us more stupid, the movie treats us accordingly. A generation ago, Sorkin found fame writing TV political drama The West Wing. His secret then was making viewers feel smart. Now he seems to be addressing the concussed. When Madison reveals that, in 2016, 64 per cent of new members of extremist groups on Facebook were led there by the company, the fact is instantly repeated twice. When one crisis follows another for Zuckerberg, characters wail: “The timing couldn’t be worse!”

In 2010, Fincher brought the dark snap of a crime thriller to a character study. Now, real-world urgency feels silly. Meet-ups between Haugan and Horwitz are played as screwball, filled with zany chat about Basset Hounds and banana daiquiris. White is dull, which the movie equates with decency; Madison spends half the film in little black dresses, implausibly. All this is tough on the actors. Nor is it great for whistleblowers or journalists, about whom Sorkin makes earnest noises while clearly being bored by them.

Not so the killer robot gleam of Strong. As Zuckerberg insults his flunkeys, the script can finally enjoy itself. (“Are you new?” “By all means, advise me.”) Then it can’t stop itself. “We’re post-government around here,” a PR sneers at Horwitz. A good line. Sorkin thinks so too. “Please let me quote that,” the reporter replies, the screenwriterly version of a giving yourself a love bite.

And yet why any of this matters is muffled. Everyone talks but nothing is articulated. Examples of Facebook’s rotten influence are wheeled out — children cyberbullied, the bloody mayhem of January 6. But the rap sheet feels flat. There is no outrage in Sorkin’s heart. Then again, without the villainy, he wouldn’t have a green light.

That the film looks like an old-fashioned TV movie only adds to the sense of yesterday’s news. If 2010 feels long ago, so does 2021. The moment has to be painted as a disaster for Zuckerberg. In truth, it saw him suffer some discomfort before he kept getting richer. The movie is Jaws if the shark just ate everyone, and then swam on.

A younger Zuckerberg confessed to having been hurt by The Social Network. Sixteen years on, there is nothing here for him to reckon with.

★★☆☆☆

In UK and US cinemas from October 9