‘The Social Reckoning’ review: Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook exposé arrives a little too late
Courtesy of Sony
At a time when the dangers of social media have been thoroughly litigated and artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming the next great technological landmine, Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” arrives with the peculiar disadvantage of having very little left to expose. For perhaps the first time in his illustrious career, the Oscar-winning screenwriter seems a few steps behind the cultural conversation rather than at the forefront of it. His latest film will undoubtedly vindicate those who have long regarded Facebook as a stain on society, and there’s no denying Sorkin’s considerable talent for turning complicated institutional failures into accessible, dialogue-driven entertainment. Yet for all its righteous indignation and verbal fireworks, “The Social Reckoning” feels curiously dated, particularly with the Sam Altman-inspired “Artificial” arriving this Christmas. More troubling is how little it resembles the sharp, incisive filmmaking that made 2010’s “The Social Network” one of the defining movies of the 21st century. Of course, that film had something this one desperately needs: David Fincher behind the camera.
Also absent is Jesse Eisenberg, who understandably declined to reprise his portrayal of Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg rather than spend the rest of his career associated with the controversial billionaire. Jeremy Strong assumes the role with considerable conviction, capturing Zuckerberg’s peculiar combination of robotic detachment, wounded arrogance and almost evangelical devotion to his own principles. It’s a fascinating performance, even if Sorkin keeps him largely on the periphery in favor of the investigative journalism that exposed Facebook’s internal misconduct.
The story instead revolves around Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison, following her Oscar-winning turn in “Anora”), whose collaboration helped bring the company’s troubling internal practices to public attention in 2021. Their investigation, published as “The Facebook Files,” revealed the extent to which Facebook understood the damage its platforms were causing while continuing to prioritize engagement and profitability. From algorithms that amplified inflammatory content to Instagram’s detrimental effects on younger users, the revelations painted a damning portrait of a company that knew considerably more than it was willing to admit.
It’s inherently compelling material, and Sorkin certainly knows how to make conversations about corporate accountability sound like matters of life and death. The problem is that much of what once made these disclosures so alarming has since become common knowledge. Rather than finding a fresh perspective on the scandal, Sorkin largely reconstructs the outrage surrounding it, repeatedly emphasizing conclusions the audience has already reached. He also can’t resist the occasional contrivance, including an especially awkward restaurant encounter in which Haugen overhears parents consoling their cyberbullied child before the father confronts her and demands that she shut Facebook down. Can we file that under things that probably didn’t happen for $100, Alex? It’s the sort of painfully convenient exchange that reduces a complicated societal problem to a tidy dramatic illustration, as though Sorkin doesn’t trust the material to speak for itself.
To his credit, the film moves briskly, and the performances are uniformly capable, even when the characters function more as mouthpieces for competing arguments than fully realized individuals. Strong, in particular, makes Zuckerberg’s repeated insistence that he’s a “free speech absolutist” sound increasingly hollow as the evidence against his company accumulates. Sorkin is interested in the contradiction between Facebook’s public commitment to free expression and its private willingness to manipulate what users see, especially when outrage proves more profitable than responsible discourse.
That contradiction should provide the film with its dramatic backbone. Instead, “The Social Reckoning” often mistakes the accumulation of damning information for an escalating narrative. We learn how Facebook’s algorithms rewarded inflammatory content, how the company understood the relationship between anger and engagement, and how those incentives helped create an environment in which misinformation and extremist rhetoric could flourish. These are serious accusations with enormous implications, but Sorkin rarely finds a way to dramatize them beyond having one character explain their significance to another. By the time the film builds toward the January 6 Capitol attack, the intended crescendo lands with a surprisingly dull thud.
The film is considerably more effective when Sorkin allows competing philosophies to collide without immediately telling us which one should prevail. Some of its strongest scenes involve Zuckerberg and former confidant Charlie Garrigan (Bill Burr) debating the ramifications of fact-checking political advertisements. Strong and Burr go toe-to-toe with the kind of crisp, combative Sorkin dialogue that can make even a corporate policy meeting feel like a heavyweight bout. These exchanges reveal the competing interests, ideological contradictions and personal egos that shaped Facebook’s decision-making, allowing the audience to wrestle with the implications rather than simply receive another lecture.
Unfortunately, those moments are too infrequent. Much of the remaining film resembles an extended episode of “The Newsroom,” complete with impassioned speeches, conveniently timed revelations and characters who possess an almost supernatural ability to articulate the moral stakes of every conversation. Sorkin has always been susceptible to this kind of self-righteousness, but his best work finds ways to complicate it. Here, he seems so certain of his conclusions that the film has little room for ambiguity, discovery or even genuine surprise. The result is a movie that is never particularly boring but frequently feels stagnant, propelled by the rhythm of its dialogue rather than any meaningful dramatic momentum.
Which brings us back to Fincher. What made “The Social Network” so extraordinary wasn’t simply Sorkin’s screenplay, but the tension between his writing and Fincher’s direction. Sorkin supplied the verbal dexterity, while Fincher brought a colder, more calculating sensibility that exposed the insecurity, ambition and moral emptiness lurking beneath every exchange. Together, they transformed the origins of Facebook into something approaching a modern American tragedy, one that understood the implications of its subject without needing to spell them out. “The Social Reckoning,” by comparison, is far more interested in prosecuting its case than examining the people and systems that made the scandal possible.
None of this diminishes the importance of the story Sorkin is telling, nor does it suggest that Facebook’s misconduct deserves to fade from public consciousness. If anything, the continued influence of social media makes the subject as relevant as ever. But relevance alone doesn’t make for compelling cinema, and Sorkin’s inability to distinguish between informing an audience and engaging one leaves his latest film feeling more like a retrospective of grievances than a genuinely illuminating investigation. “The Social Reckoning” reminds us how much damage has already been done, but it offers little insight into how we arrived here beyond what we already know. For a filmmaker whose greatest work once seemed capable of anticipating the future, that’s a disappointing place to end up.
Grade: C+
THE SOCIAL RECKONING is now playing in theaters.
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