{"id":874123,"date":"2026-10-07T16:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/874123\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:36:09","slug":"the-social-reckoning-review-aaron-sorkin-goes-after-facebook-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/874123\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Social Reckoning’ Review: Aaron Sorkin Goes After Facebook Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEarly in The Social Reckoning<\/a>, a douchey finance bro on a joyless date with the protagonist makes the preposterous claim that chlorophyll is \u201can internal deodorant,\u201d stating this as fact because he read it on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cYou drink it and your sweat smells like flowers!\u201d he enthuses. While the scene is played for low-key cringe comedy, it nails two key issues at the heart of Aaron Sorkin<\/a>\u2019s engrossing whistleblower thriller \u2014 one is the irresponsible spread of misinformation on the supposedly smiley-happy social media service, while the other is the public\u2019s willingness to buy whatever gets fed to them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Jeremy Strong<\/a>\u2019s cartoonishly affectless but mordantly funny Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> \u2014 whose founding of Facebook was chronicled with needling perspicacity in David Fincher\u2019s 2010 drama The Social Network<\/a> \u2014 describes himself as \u201ca free-speech absolutist,\u201d what he means is that his opposition to fact checking is company policy. That applies whether we\u2019re talking organized hate groups, politicians slamming their opponents in negative campaigning, or teenage mean girls bullying and body-shaming their peers.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Social Reckoning\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tThe algorithm is the enemy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, Oct. 9
Cast: Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen, Bill Burr, Anna Lambe, Gbenga Akinnagbe
Director-screenwriter: Aaron Sorkin
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 52 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSorkin won an Oscar with his adapted screenplay for The Social Network<\/a>, and if his follow-up, coming 16 years later and seeing him step up to writer-director responsibilities, doesn\u2019t measure up to its critically lauded predecessor, well, that\u2019s an awfully high bar to clear. But this nominal sequel makes for sharp entertainment, even if it sticks you with the depressing takeaway of a cautionary tale addressing a blight that\u2019s too late to fix.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong with his signature rapid-fire, garrulous dialogue, Sorkin\u2019s tendency for self-righteous indignation is very much in evidence. But the material provides him with plenty of legitimate reasons to be pissed, and the movie is never at risk of becoming a pedantic lecture.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s also acted with galvanizing conviction. Mikey Madison<\/a> plays Frances Haugen, the introverted Facebook data engineer who believes in the company\u2019s mission to give everyone a voice \u2014 until she sees the profit-driven ways in which that freedom of expression is giving a mouthpiece to extremists. And Jeremy Allen White<\/a> is Jeff Horwitz, the Wall Street Journal tech reporter with whom Haugen collaborates on an explosive series of articles informally titled The Facebook Files, exposing the toxic culture behind the company\u2019s stratospheric reach.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a fascinating synchronicity between the current real-world anxiety and the film industry\u2019s sudden interest in dense studies of the tech world\u2019s dark underbelly. A week after Sony releases The Social Reckoning, Bleecker Street will open Musk<\/a>, Alex Gibney\u2019s head-spinning documentary, running close to four hours, about the rise and rise of Tesla titan Elon Musk. On Christmas Day, Neon will weigh in with the best of the three, Luca Guadagnino\u2019s Artificial<\/a>, a humorous and ultimately horrifying account of 20 years of AI evolution and a scorching portrait of OpenAI founder Sam Altman. (There\u2019s also Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim\u2019s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything<\/a> \u2014 a different beast entirely.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat all three films have in common, aside from various intersections and overlaps in their stories, is their repositioning of tech billionaires as the new screen villains. Lawyers and finance traders must feel so relieved. Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman to some extent are all exceedingly skilled, ethically dubious con men, all of them able to sell their insatiable hunger for astronomical wealth as a service to humanity, while also selling themselves, not as technocrats so much as creative visionaries.<\/p>\n

\n\tSorkin opens with a tartly funny prologue whose title, \u201cWhite Girl Wasted,\u201d refers to a motorist (Portia Doubleday) who has pulled over to the side of the road, where she stands behind the vehicle scrolling through her phone. When two cops approach asking if she needs assistance, she is curtly dismissive but becomes hostile and racially abusive once they ask her \u2014 with good reason \u2014 to take a sobriety test.<\/p>\n

\n\tA double-whammy monster of entitlement and victimhood, the drunk woman films the events leading to her arrest and later posts the video under the header \u201cVoice of Reason,\u201d including the screeching outburst: \u201cThis is what happens when you\u2019re white in America, you get treated like a fucking immigrant!\u201d It\u2019s later revealed that Frances knew the woman in the viral video back when she was a mellow progressive, learning that she was radicalized by an alt-right group on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrances\u2019 data research has already turned up a bunch of similar cases, including the alarming statistic that 64 percent of Facebook users who recently joined extremist groups were directed to those organizations\u2019 sites by the algorithm.<\/p>\n

\n\tSorkin briskly paints a portrait of a company with an uncongenial working environment and little transparency. Frances\u2019 attempt to raise her concerns at a team meeting where Zuckerberg addresses the assembled staff is cut off when there\u2019s no time left for questions. And when she tries talking to colleagues, one smirks at her quaint use of index cards while another warns her against drawing negative attention.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, Jeff transfers from a political beat in Washington to become the new San Francisco tech reporter, getting a barbed reception from bureau chief Christina (Betty Gilpin<\/a>) when he\u2019s late for their first meeting because he couldn\u2019t work the car\u2019s GPS system. While brittle Christina rolls her eyes at being stuck with an analog guy to cover Big Tech, Jeff\u2019s editor Andy (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is a far more chill ally. Jeff is assigned two social media-savvy interns and instructed to get up to speed on Facebook, where he has already noticed the improbably low number of negative comments about user satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another thread, Strong\u2019s Zuckerberg twitches with irritation through mock congressional hearings, with a PR team headed by crisis management specialist Raya (Wunmi Mosaku<\/a>), whose task is to make the Facebook CEO likable. Given that he\u2019s a warmth-free zone who can\u2019t even settle on the right tie, that job is no walk in the park. Media relations exec Teddy Marks (Billy Magnussen) looks in from time to time, and Raya has also invited someone guaranteed to ruffle Mark\u2019s feathers, his former colleague Charlie Garrigan (Bill Burr), who just published an unsparing op-ed piece in a major newspaper condemning Facebook\u2019s lax safeguards.<\/p>\n

\n\tHoping to sniff out someone inside Facebook willing to talk, Jeff sends personal letters to almost every employee and given that Frances has hit a wall trying to bring what she believes are algorithmic glitches to anyone\u2019s attention, she replies. When they meet in an isolated park location, she is nervous about breaking the terms of her contractual NDA. But she gives Jeff some basics about content violations on which to build a story.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Jeff continues to dig, with further intel from the reluctant Frances, his findings gradually point to Zuckerberg and members of his executive team having full knowledge of the harmful side-effects of their business strategy \u2014 deprioritizing \u201clikes\u201d and instead pushing for reshares, with rage bait driving traffic in exponential numbers.<\/p>\n

\n\tImportant-sounding acronyms are batted about to suggest internal guardrails \u2014 like MSI (Meaningful Social Interactions), CIT (Civic Integrity Team) or SATF (Soft Action Task Force). But at the prospect of engagement dropping by even one percent, Zuckerberg rules out any serious measures against content violation, making Charlie furious by refusing to consider policing political ads for falsehoods. \u201cWe\u2019re a corkboard,\u201d says Zuckerberg with unwavering impassivity. \u201cWe don\u2019t control what people pin on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWithout ever naming the sitting U.S. president, Sorkin hits hard by showing footage (which appears to be largely re-enacted) of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Staffers urge Zuckerberg to take down videos of the insurrection posted by POTUS, enduring an agonizing wait before he finally gives the order \u2014 deleting posts being the last-resort \u201chard action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s nothing terribly subtle about The Social Reckoning, though sometimes its blunt force can take your breath away, for instance when Teddy, with cold, smug efficiency, responds to the threat of congressional scrutiny by saying, \u201cWe\u2019re not frightened by Congress. We are post-government around here.\u201d With Facebook currently counting north of 3 billion monthly active users worldwide, and 43 percent of adults now getting their news from the platform, it\u2019s grim knowing that even after the WSJ stories ran and Haugen testified before Congress nothing changed in terms of fact checking. <\/p>\n

\n\tSorkin gonna Sorkin, so the hectoring superiority creeps in at times, even if he keeps the speechifying to a minimum. But he presents a persuasive case for this monolithic \u201ccommunity forum\u201d as a 21st-century plague that stokes division, harms children and weakens democracies.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie looks terrific, with DP Jeff Cronenweth returning to provide visual consistency with The Social Network and Alexandre Desplat\u2019s elegant score feeding the tension without working too hard at it.<\/p>\n

\n\tStrong\u2019s decidedly peculiar performance is likely to be divisive, maybe leaving some to wonder whether he\u2019s intentionally trying to be funny at times. But he gets the emotionless reptilian aspect of a man who can look the other way while his money-making machine is being instrumentalized by drug cartels and human traffickers or used as a tool to influence elections or causing a significant spike in teen mental health issues.<\/p>\n

\n\tOthers in the cast doing incisive work include Mosaku, Burr, Magnussen and Gilpin, though the heart of the movie is White and especially Madison. White\u2019s everyman quality sits well with a character for whom journalistic integrity is non-negotiable. \u201cMy bias is not because tech is taking journalists\u2019 jobs,\u201d he tells Frances early in their association. \u201cIt\u2019s because you\u2019re doing them so badly.\u201d Madison has made a smart choice for her biggest role since bagging an Oscar for Anora<\/a>; her character\u2019s trajectory from Facebook believer through disillusioned outlier to courageous whistleblower is stirringly rendered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early in The Social Reckoning, a douchey finance bro on a joyless date with the protagonist makes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[38131,146582,88,10414,38132,39033,12424,38133,38379,108209,162269],"class_list":["post-874123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-betty-gilpin","tag-entertainment","tag-facebook","tag-jeremy-allen-white","tag-jeremy-strong","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-mikey-madison","tag-the-social-network","tag-the-social-reckoning","tag-wunmi-mosaku"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}