‘The Social Reckoning’ has world premiere in London: Aaron Sorkin explains why Trump is not mentioned by name — ‘It’s not a red-blue issue’

‘The Social Reckoning’, Aaron Sorkin’s new film as a spiritual sequel to his 2010 masterpiece ‘The Social Network’, had its world premiere on Tuesday evening at the Curzon Mayfair cinema in London, as HeyUGuys reports. The Oscar winner for adapted screenplay returned after more than 15 years to the world of Facebook, this time also as director, with a story inspired by true events: the leak of internal documents by former Facebook engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and Wall Street Journal journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), while Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg. The film opens in cinemas on October 9.

Ahead of the premiere, Sorkin gave a new interview to Vanity Fair, in which he addressed the controversies that have accompanied the production — the summer reshoots in Vancouver and the limited test screenings. According to the director, the reshoots had nothing to do with reactions to the trailer, but were part of the usual working plan. He also explained the film’s most discussed decision: although the January 6 riot plays a role in the story, Donald Trump is never mentioned by name — ‘it’s not a red-blue issue’, Sorkin said, implying that the film is not a partisan polemic.

The cast is completed by Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen and Bill Burr. Jesse Eisenberg, Oscar-nominated as Zuckerberg in the first film, did not return — Sorkin has said, as NME reports, that the actor ‘simply did not want to be conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore’. David Fincher did not direct this time either, as his commitments on ‘The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth’ made it impossible; Sorkin took over directing himself, while the music was composed by Alexandre Desplat instead of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The first reactions from a press screening, published by World of Reel, describe the film as ‘Sorkin directing Sorkin’ — not ‘The Social Network’, but with masterfully written debate scenes; Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White are praised as the pillars of the film, while Jeremy Strong has little screen time, but is convincing.