Movie Trailer: The Social Network

Wow. I never thought I'd be excited to hear Radiohead's song 'Creep' again, but the way the Belgian Scala & Kolacny Brothers choral version is used to score this full trailer for David Fincher's The Social Network is stunning. What a perfect way to score images culled from Facebook as an intro to a story that traces a path from friendship to alienation.

We've seen two teasers for The Social Network, which follows the Harvard-based founding of Facebook and the legal wrangling that ensued over ownership of the mega-site. Each teaser just used sound clips over still images. Here we get the same clips, but with their accompanying footage. And thus we can see that Jesse Eisenberg looks very persuasive as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

David Fincher's dim color palette, in concert with the music, makes this look like a far more ominous, dramatic piece than I think anyone expected. Is it too dramatic? Maybe, but this trailer is definitely cut to make a point. That is: "yeah, this is a Facebook movie, but your assumptions are all wrong." Remember all the initial jokes about this project? The folks behind this movie sure do, and this trailer is giving them all the finger.

And yes, that's Andrew Garfield playing Jesse Eisenberg's friend and partner Eduardo Saverin, who was eventually sidelined and ousted.

The only thing with this film will be that, if you're familiar with the Harvard campus, which is a pretty specific-looking place, don't expect the film to look on point. Harvard is notoriously protective of the campus and very reluctant to let films shoot there. (Good Will Hunting had to jump through massive hoops just to light some of the buildings for shots that weren't even taking place on campus.) Johns Hopkins doubles for Harvard in the movie, but as long as you can deal with that bit of switcheroo, this one might be a killer.

(To head off one expected question: Why don't we hear any of Trent Reznor's score for the film in this trailer? Likely because it isn't done.)

The Social Network will open the New York Film Festival on September 24 and then appear in theaters on October 1.