Opening nationwide this weekend, Steve Jobs is the second biopic of the legendary Apply co-founder. Michael Fassbender is exceptional but the movie is far from perfect.
Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogan, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg) – Michael Fassbender is perhaps the more revered actor in Hollywood who Americans don’t know. Fassbender stole the screen as the plantation owner in 12 Years A Slave, his coming out party for most people. But he has a long list of credits and no fewer than seven movies in the works.
As Steve Jobs in Steve Jobs, he is mesmerizing, which isn’t the same things as likable. Jobs was notoriously tough on everyone, and Fassbender certainly captures that trait. Somehow, Fassbender – with a strong assist from legendary writer Aaron Sorkin – manages to imply an underlying humanity for this oft-described (in the movie and in real life) a**hole. He thoroughly dominates the screen and appears in practically every frame of the movie, including in flashbacks.
In fact, Fassbender is so captivating that he renders co-star Kate Winslet (who plays Job’s marketing director Joanna Hoffman) as almost irrelevant. She seemed to me a bit miscast but that is never true. Perhaps she just isn’t a second banana.
The film depicts jobs from the unsuccessful introduction of the Macintosh to the debut of the iMac. It focused interminably on the hours before each of Jobs’ infamous and popular premieres of these new products. In fact, all of the drama occurs on these event days.
Jobs conflictingly interacts a couple of times with John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), the former Pepsi executive who he hired as CEO and who later fired him (and who was later deposed himself when Jobs came back to save the company). We see him in conflict with Andy Hertzfield (Michael Stuhlbarg), the engineering brain of Apple, who serves as a surrogate father to Jobs’ daughter, Lisa, with whom Jobs has an odd relationship. The best moments of the film occur in wonderful scenes between Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, played perfectly by Seth Rogan, who resembles Wozniak physically.
This film is really a character study of the first order. As that, Steve Jobs is remarkable. As a film, not so much. With Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) at the helm, Steve Jobs is a bit too neat, relying on Sorkin’s snappy dialogue and outstanding acting to carry the film. There is nothing beautiful, creative or exciting about the technical parts of this film. In fact, the grainy look of the movie is perplexing, particularly when you consider Apple’s reputation for flashy, state-of-the-art graphics. Contrasted to The Walk, which I saw a day earlier, Steve Jobs is the opposite – no computer graphics, no memorable soundtrack, no flash. It is all substance.
I wish the film had followed Jobs through the iPod, the iPhone, and up to the iWatch as well as through his illness and untimely death. But it doesn’t. That was a conscious choice since the movie is based on the book by Job’s handpicked biographer, Walter Isaacson.
Inevitably, this film will be compared with the earlier flick, Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher played Jobs more whimsically and quirky; Fassbender as egotistical, detached and brilliant. Both are worth seeing and comparing.
Steve Jobs isn’t a perfect film but Fassbender may have been the perfect actor to portray the legend.