The Social Network patois is annoying! Which part? The part where they…talk too much and say so much and so fast and it’s all so precious. My head hurts from The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin‘s 2-hour amped, surprisingly deposition laden romp about people writing code and backstabbing over fraternities that are really study clubs, chicken abuse and big bucks.
I listened to the opening scene: a break-up we’ve all had, a scene we’ve all written. A generic college bar, a guy and girl who can’t get it together. Harsh words exchanged at such a fast rate that it felt less like real life and more like the characters were waiting smugly with their barbs just to step on each other’s words. They weren’t talking like people, or characters really, they were using the writer’s own voice. And when everyone sounds the same, it’s a lot of shouting down a boring crowded hallway of clones.
Opening your characters to new voices while keeping them in stead with their peers is the way to properly craft a character. Besties will have common phrases, while so will criminals, generally not the same ones, but each person and the way they speak is unique and special and to just steamroll from one line to the next isn’t right, because it doesn’t give the actors a chance to emote, to relate, or to create the necessary pathos needed to care about the characters. Or to borrow a phrase from Tyler Durden, Sorkin is just letting his characters “Wait for their turn to speak.” He doesn’t give them the space to deeply interact. It’s like a boxing a hanging bag: boom boom boom boom. Rhythmic repetition but a slamming beat over and over.
Those characters weren’t connecting, they were reciting lines like every Sorkin character ever recited a line before them, well, but sounding like Sorkin himself, hyper, clever and geniusly aggressive. And maybe, if I play devil’s advocate for a second and give Sorkin some credit, and say he was setting up the pacing, the energy of the film, the characters as unlikable people through this opening scene, well he did that in spades. Except nothing about any of it endeared me to any of them. Because they were so go-go-go in the exact same way, my heart was thumping, due to the non-stop, rapid-fire, pseudo-genius-ease. I found the dialogue exhausting. I walked out and wished for aspirin for my aching head.
This whole movie felt like each character was hanging around the craft service table just waiting for their chance to deliver their lines perfectly. I LOVE David Fincher. He’s a God and his filmmaking is incredible. It was exciting, off-putting, confusing and while I felt the ending lacked some of the resolution I was looking for, I felt it was artful and worthy. It was beautifully shot, the pacing was excellent and the match reveals worked brilliantly.
However, the writing drove me mad! I tried to get lost in Fincher’s cinema, but I can’t help it. I can’t stand Aaron Sorkin’s “coke binge patois”… every character sounds like the same genius who has been up all night doing blow. And while that’s fun for some, it gives me a headache, especially when no one has their spoons out willing to share.
To be fair, Sorkin isn’t the only one whose writing I find challenging for this exact reason. Sitting through aggressive, same patios is exhausting, not because the writers themselves are not super-genius talented; they’re characters, every one of them, are a one-trick ponies and I want more.
The common thread here is that when every character in your script sounds the same: the grocery man, the teen slut, the butcher, the baker, and the gun runner, your script won’t read right. The best writers are writers who are able to have a total consistent voice that is their own, while imbuing their characters with their own voices and patois. For example, I might speak differently with my bestie at a rave than at a holiday dinner with the folks, but if my folks and everyone at the party sounds the same, and everyone in every scene after does as well, it looses its charm. But in movies like this, with very important writers, the WRITING IS WHAT MATTERS. Don’t make everyone sound the same. Give the characters the respect they deserve to be their own people. You put so much effort into creating them, make them the special individuals they are.
Yes, the story is important, but one part of the screenwriting process that is so neglected are the characters’ voices, and if you’re unable to craft them so that they’re different enough to live in the same world but “be their own people,” then for me your movie isn’t a success. I’m not lambasting Sorkin. He’s a genius and talented and he and I know it. I just wish he didn’t write all of his characters the same and at the same level of clever genius, studio exec or janitor. It makes them all seem dumb in their shining brilliance.
Oh and a little shoutout to Justin Timberlake trying to act. He’s so cute. I wanted to pinch his cheeks every time he earnestly tried to deliver a poignant line. Aww, Justin. Keep at it buddy, you’ll get there. I hear you’re the voice of Boo-Boo.
