Fingers brush against a dark green leaf. A film leaves open-ended discussions, in which viewers are itching to find the solutions. The Social Network establishes a new, updated brand: stingy nettle filmmaking. This surpasses refrigerator knowledge by instilling an immediate yearning for common, everyday details. The picture becomes hard to wash away like that unforgiving sensation of having experienced something wondrous and dark. Its impact can be recalled with a single line reading or look. In short, David Fincher's film breaks down firewalls and meets the viewer's wishes with all the purpose of a high speed train.

Fincher moves right along, abandoning the clockwork placebo quality of The Game and Seven. He's fascinated with Mark Zuckerberg's ideology and method for creating Facebook. There's never a moment which feels inherently dull or outwardly brash. The Social Network could be his most honest think piece.

Playing Zuckerberg challenges actor Jesse Eisenberg to create a box of mysteries, in which we have the key, yet struggle to overcome various obstacles. He's a fast-talking individual who's onto the next thought before the first one has settled. His opening interaction with girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) features a cascade of insults and misjudged observations. We come away hurt from the experience. Some may detest Zuckerberg's I-must-have-the-last-word insistence. He's just socially inadequate, looking for the "cool" social in-between platform.

Co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) runs into trouble, his penny-for-your-thoughts openness clashing with Zuckerberg's matter of fact candour.

The Social Network becomes a talking/debate classroom in which opposing theories will meld and stream of consciousness essays will be written. Far from exhibiting the closed in, fax room intimacy of lonely men on computers, this film develops into an open-mic, cultural birthplace for old ideas refreshed. 

(Released by Columbia Pictures and rated "PG-13" for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language.)