On Screen: “The Social Reckoning”
The Social Reckoning
Set 13 years after “The Social Network,” “The Social Reckoning” dramatizes what led to the 2021 Facebook leak by whistleblower Frances Haugen and how Jeff Horwitz, an intrepid Wall Street Journal political reporter, broke the story about how an addictive social media platform can influence society.
There’s a provocative prologue: Kayleigh (Portia Doubleday), a young white woman standing on the road by her disabled vehicle, waiting for AAA, is approached by Black and Latina police officers offering assistance. She reacts with hostility that quickly escalates into a racist rant, duly filmed on her iPhone.
Soon after, she uploads the volatile footage to Voice of Reason, a white supremacist Facebook group, where it’s spotted by nerdy Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) who recognizes Kayleigh as a former friend who was once quite liberal.
Gen-Z Harvard Business School graduate Haugen works at Facebook’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters in a department focused on “trust and safety.” But no one will listen to her awkward assertions about what the website’s supposedly benign algorithm actually does, particularly as it applies to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
So when Horwitz fishes around for Facebook sources, Haugen responds. Hesitant at first — because of fear of reprisals — she gradually gives him access to 20,000 internal documents detailing how CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) ruthlessly prioritized profit over public safety, disregarding the harmful impact Facebook’s and Instagram’s MSI (Meaningful Social Interactions) have on users.
While often-witty screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network,” “West Wing,” “The Newsroom”) seems jargon-obsessed, he does deliver some caustic jabs — like when Horwitz is accused of being a technophobe: “My bias isn’t because tech is taking our jobs — but because they’re doing them so badly.”
But, as director, Sorkin is heavy-handed — bordering on boring — eliciting low-key, perfunctory performances from White and Madison. And while Strong captures the chilling tonal quality of Zuckerberg’s voice, his aloof, megalomaniacal impersonation is robotic, indicative of functional autism.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Social Reckoning” is a forgettable, fetid 5 — playing in theaters.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.