I know very little about Steve Jobs the man. I’ve never read Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed book, upon which the film is based. I never saw the Ashton Kutcher film, nor the recent documentary. I am not an Apple devotee. So I came into viewing director Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs with no bias toward the person or the company, and I looked forward to seeing the study of a visionary character captured on screen. I hoped to see complexity and arc and a genuine story of man’s battle with himself and others on the verge of a quickly approaching future. Unfortunately, the film is little more than a series of shouting matches among great actors trying to salvage a barely existing story.
The film revolves, over the course of 15 years, around three product launches and the backstage confrontations Jobs (Michael Fassbender) has with his colleagues before each of them. The complications in the growth of his brand are also mirrored by the evolution of his relationship with his daughter and the girl’s mother. Jobs is challenged throughout by his assistant (Kate Winslet), his former boss (Jeff Daniels), his head Mac technician (Michael Stuhlbarg), and his friend (?) and inventing partner, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen). With each confrontation, Jobs demonstrates his unyielding passion to shape the future and by force of will change the technological landscape forever. He wants to change the functionality of people’s lives, but he doesn’t know how to function as a person himself. Jobs’s closed-system and incompatible machines reflect his own separation from others, and he believes those that stand in his way are not only personal obstacles, but impediments to innovation.
Steve Jobs is written by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who has made a handsome living specializing in “the smartest guy in the room” characters: Mark Zuckerberg, Danny Kaffe, Charlie Wilson, Andy Shepard, the entire Bartlet administration, and others. Jobs is no different: a man obsessed with perfection, gifted with vision, and uncomfortable being around people less talented. Sorkin’s style has always walked a fine line between appropriately showy and just showing off. No one in real life talks that fast. No one in real life has quickdraw retorts that are simultaneously wicked burns and beautiful poetry. And no one plagiarizes himself more than Sorkin (see here and here). Steve Jobs has Sorkin’s ubiquitous and off-putting “whats” and “yeahs” and a tired gag involving a name mix-up, but the language here isn’t the problem. Sorkin has always succeeded with his unique style because of its service to interesting plots. Steve Jobs doesn’t have one. The three product releases are intended to represent a three-act structure, but little changes in Jobs throughout the film. He’s still the same petulant bully at the end as he was at the beginning.
The cast is the film’s strongest element. They all perform admirably, particularly Rogen in a surprisingly effective serious role. There are several dynamic scenes, with perhaps the best being a volcanic showdown between Fassbender and Daniels in which the heart of the controversy surrounding Apple’s firing of Jobs is detailed. The cult-like following of Apple is also included nicely, with crowds cheering every time Jobs appears, despite his repeated product flops and a personality that is mostly an eerie façade.
This film is somewhat successful solely because of the actors’ ability to be interesting in spite of the material they are given. There just isn’t much of a story here, and one may leave the theater wondering the point of it all. It’s hard to tell what the ultimate message of the film is. Follow your passion, and don’t take “no” for an answer? Even when you fail, keep creating? Be a jerk and eventually everyone will realize you’re a genius? Be abusive to those who do all the work for you, since you’re a billionaire and can do whatever you want? Ignore your own daughter, but then invent the iPod and she’ll forgive you? I’m not sure of the takeaway here.
The Social Network, about a similar type of person in a similar field of innovation and also written by Sorkin, is an immeasurably better film than Steve Jobs in part because Zuckerberg learns that the world doesn’t always bend to his will; Jobs never learns that lesson. The Social Network also prevails because the product being invented, Facebook, is a reflection of humanity. The products Jobs promotes reflect himself. People are much more interesting than a singular person, no matter how smart we think he is. And The Social Network looks fantastic on the big screen. Steve Jobs is a film that doesn’t really need to be a film. This project could work just as effectively (and perhaps more so) as a stage play. There are minimal sets and mountains of words, not visuals, are the focus of the story. There is almost nothing cinematic about Boyle’s production, and much as what theater does for David Mamet’s work, the stage may actually display the linguistic nature of this text more powerfully. Just a thought for some enterprising theater promoter out there.
I had high expectations for this film because of my fondness for each of the actors, along with Boyle and Sorkin. But Steve Jobs is much like his own Apple innovations: full of flash and fury, yet ultimately not really working the way we hope.
Grade: C
The film revolves, over the course of 15 years, around three product launches and the backstage confrontations Jobs (Michael Fassbender) has with his colleagues before each of them. The complications in the growth of his brand are also mirrored by the evolution of his relationship with his daughter and the girl’s mother. Jobs is challenged throughout by his assistant (Kate Winslet), his former boss (Jeff Daniels), his head Mac technician (Michael Stuhlbarg), and his friend (?) and inventing partner, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen). With each confrontation, Jobs demonstrates his unyielding passion to shape the future and by force of will change the technological landscape forever. He wants to change the functionality of people’s lives, but he doesn’t know how to function as a person himself. Jobs’s closed-system and incompatible machines reflect his own separation from others, and he believes those that stand in his way are not only personal obstacles, but impediments to innovation.
Steve Jobs is written by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who has made a handsome living specializing in “the smartest guy in the room” characters: Mark Zuckerberg, Danny Kaffe, Charlie Wilson, Andy Shepard, the entire Bartlet administration, and others. Jobs is no different: a man obsessed with perfection, gifted with vision, and uncomfortable being around people less talented. Sorkin’s style has always walked a fine line between appropriately showy and just showing off. No one in real life talks that fast. No one in real life has quickdraw retorts that are simultaneously wicked burns and beautiful poetry. And no one plagiarizes himself more than Sorkin (see here and here). Steve Jobs has Sorkin’s ubiquitous and off-putting “whats” and “yeahs” and a tired gag involving a name mix-up, but the language here isn’t the problem. Sorkin has always succeeded with his unique style because of its service to interesting plots. Steve Jobs doesn’t have one. The three product releases are intended to represent a three-act structure, but little changes in Jobs throughout the film. He’s still the same petulant bully at the end as he was at the beginning.
The cast is the film’s strongest element. They all perform admirably, particularly Rogen in a surprisingly effective serious role. There are several dynamic scenes, with perhaps the best being a volcanic showdown between Fassbender and Daniels in which the heart of the controversy surrounding Apple’s firing of Jobs is detailed. The cult-like following of Apple is also included nicely, with crowds cheering every time Jobs appears, despite his repeated product flops and a personality that is mostly an eerie façade.
This film is somewhat successful solely because of the actors’ ability to be interesting in spite of the material they are given. There just isn’t much of a story here, and one may leave the theater wondering the point of it all. It’s hard to tell what the ultimate message of the film is. Follow your passion, and don’t take “no” for an answer? Even when you fail, keep creating? Be a jerk and eventually everyone will realize you’re a genius? Be abusive to those who do all the work for you, since you’re a billionaire and can do whatever you want? Ignore your own daughter, but then invent the iPod and she’ll forgive you? I’m not sure of the takeaway here.
The Social Network, about a similar type of person in a similar field of innovation and also written by Sorkin, is an immeasurably better film than Steve Jobs in part because Zuckerberg learns that the world doesn’t always bend to his will; Jobs never learns that lesson. The Social Network also prevails because the product being invented, Facebook, is a reflection of humanity. The products Jobs promotes reflect himself. People are much more interesting than a singular person, no matter how smart we think he is. And The Social Network looks fantastic on the big screen. Steve Jobs is a film that doesn’t really need to be a film. This project could work just as effectively (and perhaps more so) as a stage play. There are minimal sets and mountains of words, not visuals, are the focus of the story. There is almost nothing cinematic about Boyle’s production, and much as what theater does for David Mamet’s work, the stage may actually display the linguistic nature of this text more powerfully. Just a thought for some enterprising theater promoter out there.
I had high expectations for this film because of my fondness for each of the actors, along with Boyle and Sorkin. But Steve Jobs is much like his own Apple innovations: full of flash and fury, yet ultimately not really working the way we hope.
Grade: C