Review- “Steve Jobs”

“Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra.”

Thus saith the artist, the dictator, the leader, the traitor, the visionary, the hack, the one and only Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. The film is set backstage at three iconic product launches that span more than a decade, and we watch in real-time as Jobs confronts his personal and professional demons. These include his friend and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, mentor John Sculley, director of marketing Joanna Hoffman, engineer Andy Hertzfeld, and his ex-girlfriend’s daughter Lisa, whom he insists is not his.

Going into this movie, I knew nothing of Jobs himself or his Apple technology. I’m not an “Apple fanboy,” so to speak. I didn’t know anything about his being fired from Apple and creating NeXT Inc., or the difference between the first Macintosh and an iMac, or the controversy of the Apple II. Heck, I still don’t know what the Apple II is, and it plays a key role in the drama. But that doesn’t matter. Going into this movie, I didn’t know anything about Steve Jobs, so I decided to watch Steve Jobs as if it were a fiction. I pretended this man and these circumstances were concocted by the filmmakers, and it completely works.

The genius writing of Aaron Sorkin takes the story of the computer entrepreneur to another level. Yes, this movie is about Apple, but it’s ultimately a tale of pride, relationships, and the folly of power. Somehow, Sorkin has managed to top his brilliant work in A Few Good Men and The Social Network, two of the best written movies of all time. The dialogue is whip-crackingly clever, often hilarious, and always engaging. Every single word is perfectly selected with the acumen of a master wordsmith, and many lines had me laughing out loud. But Sorkin outdoes himself by not only battering us with smart writing, but also making us care. Jobs, Joanna, Woz, Hertzfeld, Sculley, and little Lisa are all three-dimensional characters– real people, not mere machines that spew one-liners. The behind-the-scenes format is very intimate, and we feel that we are seeing the real Steve Jobs that his adoring fans never did. As I watched, I never once felt that that this story was being told— I believed it was actually happening.

But a screenplay is only as brilliant as the actors performing it, and Steve Jobs has a grade-A cast. Michael Fassbender utterly disappears into the titular role, perfectly capturing the roguish charm that drew so many to him and the arrogant chill that pushed most others away. He manages to spout Sorkin’s complicated dialogue with ease, much like a genius trying showing off his superior wit. Fassbender easily could have turned Jobs into a two-dimensional jerk, but he never loses what makes Jobs tick. For example, in the “Russian Roulette” scene, Jobs comes across as one of the most fully-realized, deeply human, megalomaniacal bastards in the history of film. Fassbender is brutal, invigorating, and absolutely enthralling, delivering the best male performance of the year thus far. The brilliant Kate Winslet similarly disappears into Joanna Hoffman, carrying the eccentric genius on her weary shoulders, and Seth Rogan effectively pulls off Woz, the genuinely nice guy who finishes last.

Danny Boyle‘s electrifying direction drives the film forward at a breakneck pace, despite the fact that it is dominated by dialogue. Boyle’s use of vibrant color and heart-thumping music breathes life into the technological settings. The film’s expressive realism creates an atmosphere of hyper excitement that feels grounded in reality. Boyle keenly subverts the conventions of the biographical movie– instead of the standard and-then-this-happened format, Boyle focuses on specific scenes that manage to tell us everything we need to know about Jobs’s life without spiraling into exposition or unnatural monologuing. The movie doesn’t explore the entirety of Jobs’s career, but it captures the essence of the man’s character, which is the point of a good biopic, after all.

In an interview with Deadline Hollywood, Steve Wozniak himself said, “I felt like I was actually watching Steve Jobs and the others, not actors playing them. I give full credit to Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin for getting it so right.” Boyle, Sorkin, and Fassbender have created a brilliant movie that conveys the mind of a complex man while being wildly entertaining, poignant, and riveting. One of the highest compliments I can give a movie is that it felt significantly shorter than its actual runtime– I wanted it to go on and on.

9/10