The film received positive reviews from critics. Metacritic, a site that aggregates reviews and averages them out into one convenient number, ranks it at 97 out of 100 — an exceptional performance.
As USA Today notes, ticket sales might actually improve because the film is aimed at a demographic that often skips opening weekends to absorb as much buzz and read as many reviews as possible before spending their time and money to go to the theater.
An initial flurry of criticism was leveled at the film because it ignores or alters some facts for dramatic purposes. The media and some of Facebook's top figures claimed it was an unflattering and inaccurate picture of founder Mark Zuckerberg.
We disagree that it's unflattering, and as far as the facts go, the narrative aims to use both factual truth and fiction to get at the real meanings behind entrepreneurship, social relationships and the other subjects in the film's purview. It's a bit like famed documentary director Werner Herzog's "ecstatic truth."