When David Fincher’s The Social Network was released to critical acclaim in 2010, a question on everyone’s minds was “why now?” Why is it time to make the origin story for the competitor of MySpace? What’s so interesting about Mark Zuckerberg? Fast forward to 2026, and everything fits in perfectly. The signs were there. It’s a film that only rises in esteem each year as our billionaire CEOs get stranger and more public facing. So when Aaron Sorkin, the writer of The Social Network and creator of The West Wing, expressed interest in helming a sequel, it felt like a no brainer. Zuckerberg is now in a line of celebrity CEO that didn’t exist in 2010. Facebook owns almost every aspect of our internet use. The public is more than knowledgeable about the site’s effect on public affairs. So the question for The Social Reckoning is less “why now?” and more “what now?”
The Social Reckoning mainly follows Frances Haugen, played by Academy Award winner Mikey Madison, as a Facebook data scientist who has been noticing distressing patterns in the website’s algorithm. After multiple failed attempts to bring it up internally, she reaches out to Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter played by Jeremy Allen White. The film bounces between timelines, not unlike its predecessor, jumping through the years 2019 though 2022. Throughout, we see Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, portrayed by Jeremy Strong, preparing for a senate hearing with a cadre of legal representatives. While The Social Network followed more of a legal drama structure, Reckoning is much more interested in the journalism side of this story. Haugen is wary of leaking the story to the press because, as she says a myriad of times throughout, she loves her job. Our conflict resides in how long it will take for her to decide to give Horwitz more information.
The follow-up to a young actor’s first Oscar win is always a fascinating choice. Mikey Madison, who won for her showstopping turn in Anora, has found herself in a polar opposite role. Frances is a self proclaimed nerd who, when filling out a flattering dating profile, can only admit to being “a data scientist”. Madison clearly wants to show that she can fit into any role you throw her in, but Sorkin doesn’t seem as interested in showing her range. She, along with most of the other cast, cannot break through the quippy dialogue in order to show us the humans behind the story. The direction is really the downfall of most of these performances. Jeremy Allen White is clearly dedicated to playing Horwitz as matter of fact and straight to the point, but whenever he delivers asides about movie musicals, you feel the author’s fingers all over the performance. Jeremey Strong’s performance as Mark Zuckerberg, being the only character that carries over from the first film, unfortunately doesn’t break the pattern. The combination of Strong’s vocal inflections and posture with Sorkin’s dialogue feels like a celebrity guest doing a political impression on an SNL cold open.
The Social Reckoning is a fascinating work of comparison in general. Not since Joker and Joker: Folie a Deux has there been such a discrepancy in an Oscar winning film and its lackluster sequel. And that’s another question that begs to be asked: is this a sequel? Aaron Sorkin uses a non-linear timeline like the first film, features a main character from the first film, and references plot details from the first film, but this new one feels like it wants to be its own movie. This story is so far removed from The Social Network that distancing from it would only benefit the film. The film’s prologue, a disastrous interaction between a drunk woman and two police officers, is clearly where Sorkin wants to spend his time. It plays into the main story as a catalyst for Frances to start doing her investigation, but the way it folds into the film’s ending feels like what the film wanted to be about the entire time. During a real life incident in January 2021 (you can guess which one), Mark Zuckerberg and his crisis team run into the Facebook war room and work on how to handle the situation. It’s so reminiscent of Sorkin’s HBO show The Newsroom that it makes you wish that the entire film was just about how a social media platform deals with large scale events.
Returning to the original question: what now? This film behaves like a warning sign to social media users that their algorithms do not have their best interest. A noble venture in 2019, but in 2026, it feels like calling 911 after watching a car crash happen on the news. It’s hard to understand who this movie is for. Every line of dialogue feels like a mic drop onto a pile of feathers. It does not provoke a righteous anger. If anything, it makes you feel like nothing can be done – might as well scroll Facebook.
1 out of 5 stars.
The Social Reckoning is a fascinating disaster. There’s so much potential for a film about the power of journalism in the world of AI and fake news, and you can really feel the desire for that potential. Unfortunately, writer Aaron Sorkin cannot figure out how to work with his director, also named Aaron Sorkin.
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