The first reactions to The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin‘s intriguing followup to The Social Network, have hit social media.
Full critics reviews for the Sony Pictures film drop on Oct. 7, but the embargo for brief social media reactions to press screenings on Monday has been lifted and the consensus seems to be that Social Reckoning is a timely slow burn legal drama with a compelling performance from Jeremy Strong.
A companion film rather than a direct sequel to David Fincher‘s The Social Network (2010), which Sorkin wrote, Social Reckoning tells the story of the 2021 Facebook leak that saw tens of thousands of internal documents about the company’s practices sent to the Wall Street Journal and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Per the film’s logline: “Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), a Wall Street Journal reporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets.”
Strong plays Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the film, taking over from Jesse Eisenberg, who turned down the opportunity to play Zuckerberg once more. The stellar cast also includes Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen and Bill Burr.
As with all this directorial projects, Sorkin wrote the script. Interestingly, Jeff Cronenweth, Fincher’s longtime cinematographer who also worked on Social Network, lensed the film and the music is by two-time Oscar-winner Alexandre Desplat.
Sorkin’s film comes at a time when Hollywood is applying much greater scruitiny to Silicon Valley’s tech titans. In recent weeks, Alex Gibney has released Musk, a searing documentary about polarizing trillionaire Elon Musk. On Monday, first reactions to Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman biopic Artificial started to hit social media. Also coming up in Nathan Fielder’s acclaimed docudrama You Can See Everything, about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
The Social Reckoning hits theaters on Oct. 9. Below is a selection of early reactions to the film.
