Jeff's Reviews

Thoughts on every movie I've ever seen.

Steve Jobs (2015)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels

Author

A LOT of talking. It’s a blurry mumbo-jumbo of product names, operating systems, and business directives. Names are dropped, characters fly in an out in a rush to tell some sort of story. None of the relationships Jobs has with his family, peers, bosses, or competitors is explored with any depth. Only those with knowledge of Apple’s history will be able to keep up. Perhaps all of this is a consequence of Sorkin’s TV-style screenplay. The rapid-fire dialogue and subject matter makes it feel a lot like Sorkin’s other tech bio, The Social Network.

The rigid structure of three, 30-minute scenes featuring specific product launches is novel but not very dramatic. All we have is a skim across the surface of Jobs’ vision, egomania, frugality, and quirkiness. A more traditional exploration of Jobs’ character and his relationships and more footage from his iconic keynotes might have been more interesting.

And yes, I never realized Jobs was this much of a jerk and behaved so inconsistently. Was this really Jobs or just the performance? When playing the younger Jobs, they should have done something with Fassbender’s hair, coloring it and styling it, and maybe even given him a prosthetic nose. Jobs had a distinctive look, and Fassbender did very little to actually look like him.

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