Movie Review: "Steve Jobs" (Danny Boyle, 2015)

“STEVE JOBS”: ***½ (three and a half stars) by Patrick Belin

Above: Michael Fassbender is Steve Jobs.  Photo ©Universal Pictures

“Steve Jobs” is the story of a flawed man, not a mythical figure.  Not a man who changed the world (I believe it was destined to change anyway), but a man who did believe in himself and his ability to single-handedly do the changing.  Truly, there’s no doubt that Steve Jobs worked tirelessly at what he believed would work.  And considering what his company has achieved over the years, it paid off.  The feat of disrupting industries and bringing not one, but two corporate giants (IBM & Microsoft) to their knees is simply amazing.

“Steve Jobs” is not Steve Jobs.  It is a biographical film adaptation (starring Michael Fassbender) and originally told by Walter Isaacson, as dictated by Jobs himself.  The movie does justice to the fact that one person cannot single-handedly distort entire industries all by themselves, and I appreciated the film’s effort in bringing some of the myths surrounding Jobs back down to earth.  This is perhaps the movie’s greatest achievement to anyone interested in this man’s life (not to mention its excellently depicted relationship between Jobs and Apple CEO John Scully).

On film, the story of Jobs’ life works well; under writer Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) and director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”), it is spread across three distinct movements, or acts—three product launches, each of which crystallizes some element of Jobs’ life.  These episodes aren’t difficult to follow; considering its two hour running time, the film moves at a very swift pace, its timing distorted by Mr. Boyle to manufacture a sense of unfinished business (which Jobs, who died in 2011, may have felt himself). 

This effect is enhanced by Mr. Sorkin’s infamous machine-gun dialogic delivery style, which I usually enjoy.  But in this film, it felt a bit much at times.  I walked away feeling as though more scenes of quiet contemplation would have allowed Mr. Fassbender to explore the complex character he portrays with greater subtlety.  Speaking of which, the fact that Mr. Fassbender doesn’t look much like the real Jobs was not an issue for me, either going into the film or while watching it.  That’s because the acting (which, to be honest, exceeded my expectations) all around in the movie is executed convincingly, as is the chemistry between all of the main characters.  

Overall, just like its protagonist (a figure who seems almost Shakespearean, if I dare say so), “Steve Jobs” isn’t perfect.  In film geek-speak, I just felt that the movie’s segues between its three acts could have been edited and directed with better finesse.  And as hinted at above, I would have enjoyed seeing a bit more of Steve Jobs outside of the agonistic circumstances that this film chose to focus on.

PS, this was written on my MacBook Pro.

Seen at Fox Tower, 21 October, 4.30pm showtime.