Steve Jobs
Die-hard, near-maniacal Apple fans — those who own (or have even heard of) the Newton or tripped acid and audited calligraphy classes in Jobs-inspired stints at Reed College — beware. Going into Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs expecting an immaculately accurate biopic on how an adopted child turned college dropout became the modern Da Vinci is like going into an Applebee’s and hoping to be pleasantly surprised by the surf and turf meal you ordered: you’re going to leave thoroughly disappointed.
Writer Aaron Sorkin’s (The Social Network) script steals a page from Apple’s own motto, thinking differently, albeit more fictionally, about Jobs and the instrumental events that cemented his status as a revolutionary. Split into three parts, the film follows backstage happenings at the respective launches of the Macintosh (1984), NeXTcube (1988) and the iMac (1998).
The film is far from a fluff piece, and when we first meet Jobs (Michael Fassbender, Prometheus), he’s a dapperly dressed, clean-shaven ideologue of his own school of thought, fervently preparing the introduction of the Macintosh. He berates his co-workers, refusing to take the seemingly harmless advice of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen, The Interview) and threatening computer engineer Andy Hertzfeld’s (Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man) whole career if he is unable to get the demo working to Jobs’ complete satisfaction. He even uses an algorithm of his own invention to claim that he is not the father of Lisa, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice). But Jobs himself is not what makes the film compelling. It is instead that the audience is begged to question its understanding of the man who became a serene symbol of transcendental knowledge in his later years.
By the launch of NeXTcube, Jobs is seen as a vengeful mastermind. After parting ways with Apple due to a dramatized falling out with former CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels, The Martian), the film insinuates that Jobs created the entire NeXT company as part of a master plan that involved Apple needing his new operating system and thus hiring him back and admitting its mistake. By this point, Jobs has accepted the role of Lisa’s father, although their strained relationship becomes the driving point of the film. It’s also one of the film’s more embellished elements.
In reality, no credible proof exists that Lisa Brennan-Jobs was ever backstage at any of the aforementioned launch events. Thus, her 5 year-old self using the Macintosh MacPaint app to draw an “abstract” and her fourth grade self clinging to Jobs as she whispers she wants to live with him are elements of fiction.
However, these plot points become essential vehicles for the film. Despite the fact that Lisa actually lived with her father at some point in high school, the movie’s version depicts a still rocky relationship by the time of the 1998 iMac launch. This makes way for the heart-wrenching plea of Jobs’ personal assistant and “work wife” Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet, Insurgent), who begs Jobs to correct the one aspect of his life at which he has consistently failed: being a father. Furthermore, it sets everything up for a perfect ending, one which admittedly put me into a state of chills as a tear attempted to stray from my eye socket (I held strong, I promise).
Here lies the critical dilemma, for how can a film pegged as a drama/biography be fueled by a hyperbolized existence of its titular character? Boyle and Sorkin make a 122-minute runtime and three claustrophobic backstage settings run like a well-oiled machine or even a utopia’s Department of Motor Vehicles, but it’s far from a biopic. Instead, Steve Jobs is a thesis on the maturation of a modern icon, a re-imagined tale rooted loosely in reality that humanizes a man held in God-like regard.
With that being said, the film simply claims to be a story based off of Walter Isaacson’s novel of the same name, not an ironclad historical retelling. Going off that theory, the film is an absolute success (praise which I meticulously debated writing as app-solute). It garners anger, sadness, laughter and all emotions necessary for a Hollywood triumph while creatively examining the Jobs universe. Steve Jobs is a must-see, definite early Oscar contender, but remember to leave your Apple encyclopedias at home (or at least silence your phone and close your e-book).
