When you love - truly love - a writer, or a director, or an actor, you’re in it for life. I’m talking about those who you really adore, the people who help life make sense.
Aaron Sorkin created ‘The West Wing’. For that alone, I’d go to war for him. He also wrote ‘A Few Good Men’, ‘The American President’ and ‘The Social Network’. The guy is iconic.
People slammed ‘Studio 60’ and ‘The Newsroom’ but I loved those too.
But we have to come to terms with the fact that ‘The Social Reckoning’ is not particularly good.
We could - as many have - blame his directing. He’s now directed four movies in a row and they’re a pale comparison of his previous works (not saying they didn't have great moments, they did).
But this is what being an artist is. You make ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’, then you get lost for a while. ‘Reservoir Dogs’ changed everything and so did ‘Pulp Fiction’, but you can’t say every Tarantino film had the same kick.
The problem with Sorkin is he doesn’t hide himself. He writes how he writes and whether you love it or hate it, you recognise it.
He maybe made a mistake dipping back into the Facebook world but this is what artists do. They find what fascinates them and they explore. Sorkin’s best works and worst works share similarities. He’s interested in credentials; in a world where we used to trust those with a university degree and a snazzy title and now we’re not so sure. In ‘The West Wing’ and ‘The Newsroom’, people of great institutions prove themselves. They stand up for what’s right. In the Facebook films, it’s murkier. Same as in ‘Steve Jobs’. Great people invent great things and then things explode.
That’s the problem with this latest offering, nothing explodes. It just kind of piddles along. We get told Facebook changed their algorithm and then we shrug and wait for the next scene.
When you’re a writer/director, the buck stops with you. When you’re as loved as Aaron Sorkin, maybe people stop telling you when you stink. He’s written this exact dynamic in nearly all his shows and maybe now he’s living it. He needed someone to read his script and say “you don’t have it yet.” Or a cinematographer who would convince him to shoot things a different way.
It’s easy to write on the internet. If this piece I’m writing is good or bad, right or wrong, the world doesn’t change. But when you make movies at the level he does, everything has a part in your legacy.
What do we want the greats to do? Only make something when they’re certain it’s brilliant? That’s not what art is.
Sorkin made this film because it was the thing that was next. He did the best he could and now he’s onto the next project. That’s how we should want it to be.
Maybe he won’t hit his peak again. Or maybe he’ll do something that surprises us. I heard a podcast with him a few weeks back - I think it was a New York Times interview - and he was asked why he doesn’t dive into his complex personal history when writing scripts and for once he seemed genuinely flummoxed and a touch insecure about the question. He said he would think about it, consider it. It may have just been interview-patter, but I kind of believed him. Especially as ‘The Social Reckoning’ is flopping with audiences. He can’t do the thing he’s always done, he needs to dig deeper.
I might sound critical but, I love the guy. I’ll watch everything he makes and I’ll watch it ten times over. I’m ready for what’s next.