The Social Reckoning: Movie Review

Cast: Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison, Jeremy Strong, Betty Gilpin
Director: Aaron Sorkin

Director Aaron Sorkin returns to the world of Facebook with this sequel to the award-winning The Social Network.

This time, he steps behind the camera as the story follows deep into the heart of the misery inflicted by the Mark Zuckerberg-led platform in the build-up to the riots on Washington DC. It traces the journey of fully paid-up Facebook data scientist and whistleblower Frances Haugen (Anora's Mikey Madison) decides reluctantly to team up with journalist Jeff Horowitz (The Bear's Jeremy Allen White) to expose the social network's malignant behaviour.

The thing with The Social Reckoning is it won't enamour you any further to the goings on behind the scenes of Facebook. It's not that kind of film that proposes a radical solution about the algorithm and the ways the network seems to promote hate speech throughout. So in many ways, The Social Reckoning feels like a damp squib - but make no mistake, while there's no direct didacticism at play here, there is a seething unhappiness at the harm it's caused.

The film follows a three-part framing device, complete with a seemingly innocuous opener as a blonde American woman, whose car is broken down by the side of the road, is offered assistance by passing police. It's not long before things escalate and Frances wants to know why.

There's a degree of humour in the writing throughout - whether it's Allen White's Horwitz trying to take on a tech role at the Wall Street Journal without knowing how to use his GPS or some throwaway lines, Sorkin's speech mechanics are all over this - for better and for worse.

There are swathes of scenes where people speak in ways that don't appear normal to everyday folk and while both Madison and Allen White underplay their roles and soften some of the technobabble throughout, the film's perverse insistence to stay slightly aloof doesn't always benefit proceedings, even if occasional scenes point to the division spread by the network during Covid-19. 

Perhaps the oddest approach is Succession's Jeremy Strong, who plays the founder of the platform Mark Zuckerberg, like some icy robot, frozen out of the human ways of dealing with people and who lurks in the background, rather than being forefront of the material like Jesse Eisenberg was as Zuckerberg back in The Social Network.

The film lacks a propulsiveness, and for all its machinations against sitting US President Donald Trump, it lacks the courage to even say his name in one key horrific scene, leading you to the feeling the film's been somewhat neutered.

The Social Reckoning is watchable enough fare thanks chiefly to Allen White and Madison, but when it comes to once again resharing the harm done by Zuckerberg's empire, it doesn't have anything radically new to say (to those in the know) or offer a powerful non-anticlimactic conclusion given the network lives on and the QAnon divide continues to grow.

Make no mistake though, it will leave you angry - but maybe not as seething as it should do.