A Portrait That Finds Truth in Its Fiction
Steve Jobs means different things to different people. For some he was the young innovator who kept resurfacing after co-launching a computer company bent on changing its industry, while for others—myself included—he was the cool, clean mogul responsible for cool, clean products like the iPod and iPhone. The question for anyone who had such a relationship with Jobs' evolving public persona is whether or not it ever showed the real Steve. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs provides an impressionistic take on its subject that simultaneously mythologizes and humanizes him. It's an imperfect yet powerful whirlwind of a portrait that manages to find the man behind the genius.
Sorkin has embraced his beginnings as a playwright by giving this film the unique structure of playing out over three largely uninterrupted sequences set backstage before the launches of the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT Computer in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. Throughout these scenes Jobs (Michael Fassbender) contends with problems both personal and professional with Apple marketing director and confidant Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), friend and colleague Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), Mac engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), and former girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston). Also present throughout is Brennan's daughter Lisa—nicely played by there different actresses as she ages—the girl who Jobs initially denied paternity of, and the person who is really the emotional focal point of the film. As Jobs' relationship with her develops through the years, his cool demeanor incrementally warms and his demanding and exacting approach to work softens without losing a hint of focus.
The notion of exploring Jobs' life through these three moments is brilliant: first because it allows this extraordinary man's life story to escape the numbingly ordinary cradle-to-grave approach of so many biopics, and second because by couching the film in product launches, it's literally taking the audience behind the curtain of the moments in Jobs' life that were arguably his most iconic (certainly for his turtleneck-clad events of the aughts). However, in condensing aspects of his life in this manner the film excludes many events in Jobs' life that no doubt had a significant impact on his growth—finding and meeting his biological mother and sister (he was adopted), marrying Laurene Powell and having children with her—but Steve Jobs nonetheless effectively paints a picture of a genius whose humanity had to catch up to his ambition before he could become the success he was when he returned to Apple.
Focusing on this central arc is why the unique structure and choice scenes work for this portrayal. In the film's first section, a young, hotshot Jobs explains why the Macintosh has a GUI (graphical user interface), which allows for using a point-and-click mouse and icons. It's just how the human mind works, he says, as people don't count pixels and lines of code in their everyday life (I'm paraphrasing). Hindsight is 20/20, and this approach set the stage for how all of our devices work today, so of course we agree with Jobs, but his tone is condescending. He's right but we don't want to have to say it out loud. In the film's final act, the Jobs who's become more affable and relatable in his personal life more closely resembles the Jobs we're used to from his hallmark latter-day product launches. When he delivers a line prescient of the iPhone, it doesn't sound mightier than thou, it just sounds right.
This saga is brought to life with terrific panache from all involved. Sorkin's script is terrific, aside from even the structure, as his trademark sharp and fast-paced dialogue continues to find a worthy home on the big screen following The Social Network and Moneyball. Sorkin also achieves a deft balance of fiction and emotional truth. Though his script is based on the authorized Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, Sorkin also interviewed many of the people who feature in the film as characters (particularly Lisa, who didn't talk to Isaacson). Many of the exchanges between characters like Jobs and Lisa likely never took place as they do here—to my knowledge neither Lisa nor her mother were present at the product launches—but the emotional and characteristic essence of them appears true to the people to such an extent that versions of these conversations probably did happen. That's a delicate line to walk for a screenwriter, and Sorkin does it effortlessly.
Danny Boyle brings equal amounts of directorial acumen, lending the film a unique visual style and tone in each of its three segments. Boyle and cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler shot the film on 16mm film stock, 35mm stock, and digital for the three successive time periods, and each subtly communicates Jobs' refinement as a tactician of Silicon Valley. One standout sequence in the film occurs during a tense conversation between John Sculley and Jobs in 1988, crosscutting between them and the events that unfolded in Jobs' ouster from Apple in 1985. It's magnificently shot, scored, and edited. An operatic centerpiece showcasing two actors in a powerhouse two-hander of a moment.
Michael Fassbender need not prove his excellence as a performer with a film like Steve Jobs, but he commands every scene, and he's in nearly all of them. He captures Jobs, or at least this film's vision of Jobs, in a way that makes it impossible to imagine another actor in the role. Despite looking nothing like the real man, nor even sounding too close to him, Michael Fassbender becomes Steve Jobs. Kate Winslet similarly disappears into her role as Joanna Hoffman, one of the few Apple employees capable of standing up to her boss and the one who can read him like no one else. Seth Rogen is the tragic under appreciated "other" Steve with ease, and his Wozniak bares no resemblance to Rogen's well-known comedic persona. Daniels, Waterston, and Stuhlbarg all shine in their roles as well, particularly Waterston, who brings great depth to a woman who is not fully fleshed-out in this story.
If there's one thing to complain about in Steve Jobs, it's that the film's ending goes a bit too broad and simple. Or so it seems. Credit is due to Sorkin and Fassbedner for crafting a character who can become a charming salesman and do so with sincerity. It's a balance that leaves me indecisive on the character named Jobs. He sometimes seems too good to be true, but then again, that's who the real man was.
What does ring unfailingly true as the film draws to a close, is that when Fassbender's Jobs tells someone he'll put 1000 songs in their pocket, it sounds right. Not correct or prescient (though it is), but rather true to the man behind those words. I feel like I'm hearing it from someone who not only understands technology, but who understands me and everyone else watching. If that's not Steve Jobs, I don't know what is.