Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning is full of nonsense

Aaron Sorkin won an Oscar for The Social Network, a film about Facebook’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to power that has aged incredibly well, as it is more scathing and prescient now than it was in 2010. Now, Sorkin is back with a sequel-ish film, The Social Reckoning, and this time there is no David Fincher to rein him in. No, Sorkin acts as his own director, to the detriment of everyone involved. Much like Facebook itself, The Social Reckoning is full of nonsense.

Because Sorkin can’t resist his little tricks and there is no one riding herd on his worst impulses, Reckoning utilizes a split timeline, bouncing between 2019 and 2021 (and nothing of interest happens in between!). In 2019, Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) is beginning to think there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, finding incontrovertible proof that Facebook is allowing misinformation to spread unchecked, pushing users toward increasingly extremist content. She goes to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), first to tease that he should look closer to Facebook, then, finally, to share internal data and become a whistleblower.

Intercut with the time-jumping investigative journalism storyline is Mark Zuckberg, now washed, preparing for a Congressional hearing. Jeremy Strong picks up the baton as Zuckerberg, because Jesse Eisenberg had the good sense to steer clear of this baloney. Strong is a good actor, arguably even among the greatest of his generation, but he is SO WILDLY MISCAST that it seems like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s awkward and stiff and flat, and not in ways that suggest Zuckerberg might have either a personality or a diagnosis, but more like he just doesn’t know what to do in any given moment.

Strong’s “Zuckerberg voice” is belabored, and every choice seems like a flail for something to hang onto amidst Sorkin’s messy script. Strong is hung out to dry by his director, because Sorkin is more concerned with dropping zingers like “that’s what women say when they’re losing an argument” when a woman accuses Jeff Horwitz of mansplaining. Pow! Zap! You got her! Have you considered writing actual character development?

Sorkin also recreates the January 6^th riots, though the words “Donald Trump” are never uttered, in case you’re wondering about the precise ratio of smugness to cowardice in this film. Reckoning is, like the worst of Sorkin’s work, finger-wagging and tiresome. Like we don’t know Facebook is bad, like we don’t know it’s driving polarization and conflict in the name of profit. Everyone knows that, Aaron, we’re not f-cking stupid. The Social Network came so fast on the heels of social media’s rapid rise to prominence in mainstream culture that it could point out the dangers and ills of the platform while we were still adjusting to incorporating social media into our daily lives. The Social Reckoning arrives long after we’ve all adjusted and realized we’re pumping poison in our veins. Take Facebook’s problems up with Congress, they’re the only ones who can stop them now.

Aaron Sorkin is a good writer with a knack for kicky lines and a good monologue, but Jesus Christ does he need a director to cull through his scripts and tighten everything up. There is actually a good version of The Social Reckoning visible within the film that exists, one that pushes Zuckerberg even further to the margins of the story, maybe even out of frame altogether, and focuses more tightly on the effort to blow the whistle on Facebook’s dirtiest practices. There are shades of All the President’s Men in Reckoning, and Sorkin knows it which means he milks it so hard you will instantly become sick of it, but there IS a version of this film that could be a tight, tense, journalism thriller—Spotlight for Facebook.

And Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White are actually well cast in their roles, and while Sorkin can’t resist making Frances Haugen the stupidest possible version of herself—she wears slinky dresses to her meetings with Horwitz, to be taken as an escort rather than a whistleblower, because OF COURSE SHE DOES, Aaron Sorkin never met a female character he won’t humiliate—but every time their storyline starts to hum, we time jump or, worse, cut to Jeremy Strong floundering as Zuckerberg. It takes a special kind of director to render a bad Jeremy Strong performance, but congratulations Aaron Sorkin, you did it.

The Social Reckoning is now playing exclusively in theaters.

 Here is Mikey Madison making promotional rounds in New York this week.