Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlabarg, Katherine Waterston, Perla Haneyi-Jardine, Sarah’s Snook, John Ortiz, Adam Shapiro. Directed by Danny Boyle.
This is a portrait of Steve Jobs rather than a biography. It would be very helpful for appreciating this film to know some details about Jobs, his life, his work on computers, his Apple company, his rise, his fall, his making a comeback. The previous film, Jobs, stirring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs supplied a great deal of personal and professional background.
This film has been directed by Danny Boyle who began his career in British television with some Inspector Morse mysteries, achieved a reputation with such films as Shallow Grave and Transporting, working in a variety of genres, including science fiction, and won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire.
And, the film has been written by Alvin Sorkin, again, a man with a significant reputation with such television series as The West Wing and scripting films like The American President, The Social Network and Moneyball.
For this portrait, Sorkin has chosen three launches which were significant in Jobs’ career, during the 1980s and 1990s. There are quite a number of flashbacks illustrating something of the background but the audience needs some knowledge to anchor this in. They show Jobs in triumphant mode as well as under a great deal of stress, finally making a comeback.
Jobs was not particularly likeable man and Michael Fassbender, Oscar nominated performance, communicates this particularly well, hyper energetic, intense, a controller, intolerant of anyone who did not measure up to his standards, which meant abandoning friends and colleagues, dismissing them as failures in his eyes. He was also poor in more personal relationships, living under the cloud of being adopted and seemingly rejected, unwilling to acknowledge his daughter and her mother. He did have some moments of redemption, based on whims rather than convictions, often too late.
The film gives great deal of attention to preparations for the launches, a great deal of razzamatazz, precision with lights and audiovisuals. But, each episode shows his changing relationships with key characters.
These are impressively performed. Seth Rogen is surprising in a more serious role in bringing his typical screen persona to the character, the computer whizz, Steve Wozniak, but, at each stage, with the differing relationship, trying to persuade Jobs to acknowledge his past workers, his frustration and feelings of a betrayal of trust more and more evident.
Jeff Daniels appears as John Sculley who was recruited from Pepsi-Cola to manage the Apple company, had to dismiss Jobs, moved into retirement but appears at each launch. The continuing discussion is about Jobs’ need for a father-figure in his life.
Another worker is Andy Herzfeld, played by Michael Stuhlbard, not liked by Jobs, nor liking him, but, having followed Jobs’ orders so long, so highly demanding, breaks with him and gives financial support to Jobs’ daughter to enrol at Harvard.
And, all the time, there is Jobs’ assistant, Joanna Hoffman, who exhibits the patience of a saint, always loyal to Jobs, not only fulfilling all his commands but diplomatically smoothing over so many situations, especially towards his daughter and her mother, going through thick and thin, the only person who could seem to love him. This is an excellent performance by Kate Winslet.
Once again, it should be stressed that this is not a biography of Steve Jobs although audiences can learn a great deal about his life. Rather, it is a significant portrait, illuminating one of the key personalities in communications in the 20th century.