OBSERVER: The Social Reckoning
(M). 112 minutes. Now showing in cinemas.
It’s 16 years later, and Mark Zuckerberg is coming home. A ‘sequel’ to David Fincher’s brilliant 2010 drama, The Social Network, this belated follow-up from returning writer and now director Aaron Sorkin, is an admittedly entertaining if disappointingly toothless examination of heady and relevant subject matter.
Though Zuckerberg and Facebook hang over everything and everyone, the story focuses on two other people. The first is Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), who works on Facebook’s expansive Civic Integrity Team, and notices some unsettling patterns happening on the company’s network.
The second is Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), a noted investigative journalist who has just been hired by The Wall Street Journal.
With two interns on tow, Horwitz looks into the company’s possible illegal use of bots to promote policy content by their boss.
When Frances replies to inquisitive emails from Horwitz, it begins a partnership that will uncover the horrific framework put in place by Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong), using hate speech and division as a way of making more money.
This 2019 narrative plays out side by side with the upcoming 2021 senate hearings, where Frances will testify about Facebook’s immoral practises, while we see the company boss needing to prepare for the hearing, trained by a publicity team to try and make him appear human.
The Social Reckoning is a strange film. It deals with subject matter that should unsettle audiences with its look at algorithms, rebranding, and the affect it has on users, especially the young.
But the timeline presented feels outdated (2021 may seem recent, but so much has happened since then), and the more the film goes on, the more political influence appears to have compromised the final output.
While the January 6 attempted insurrection is shown, there is no mention of Trump and his MAGA followers.
The Sorkin speak is still there, from the film’s attention grabbing opening sequence (which, surely not by chance, features actor Portia Doubleday, who starred in the outstanding TV series, Mr Robot), to the funny banter between characters.
But the impact is soft, and like his 2020 film The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (2020), falls into a cheesy, popcorn-style mentality, especially in its cringeworthy final moments. Thankfully, the main three performances hold strong. Strong (The Apprentice, Succession TV series, Zero Dark Thirty) amusingly presents Zuckerberg as a robotic shell of a human being, ruined completely by money and power. White is effective as Horwitz, and seems to be deliberately imitating Dustin Hoffman from All The President’s Men (1976), underplaying the dedicated journalist.
The best performance however comes from Madison (who won an Oscar for her turn in Anora in 2025), who nicely alternates between introverted, vulnerable and headstrong.
Technically, the film is slick, and it is clever to bring back cinematographer Jeff Cronen-weth, who shot The Social Network, so visually the films have a similar look.
The Social Reckoning has enough smarts to keep audiences engaged, but there is no bite, or willingness to take on the corrupt establishment and its wealthy yes-men.
I hope this isn’t an early case of film-makers afraid to criticise those in charge, fearing backlash from a didactic administration that will happily crush their work, and careers, to continue making themselves look good (recent independent media bans in the White House are enough to chill the bones).
It is this factor that reminds me of Oliver Stone’s pointless W. (2008).
Maybe Alex Gibney’s Musk or Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial will be more impactful.
RATING – ***
Aaron Rourke
Pictured: Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison star in the new film, The Social Reckoning, now in cinemas.