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The last time Aaron Sorkin, America’s patron scribe of motor-mouthed smartasses,
tackled a flawed techno-visionary on the big screen, he gave us his version of
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and, together with director David Fincher, one of the
defining films of the 21st century. He’s back again, this time paired with
Trainspotting and
Slumdog Millionaire filmmaker Danny Boyle, to dramatize a
strikingly similar anti-social networker; another big-brained, giant ego,
control freak computer wiz kid whose inventions have, for better or worse,
helped redefine modern human interaction.
Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011, was arguably a more iconic public figure
than Zuckerberg. As Apple CEO, his various iProducts – Mac, Pod, Phone, etc –
were game-changing devices and his role in Pixar’s CG animation success story
was key. Yet, somewhat perversely, Sorkin opts to end his movie before the first
iMac is announced to the world, and avoids any Pixar involvement entirely. From
the very start, the film’s approach is entirely in keeping with Jobs’s own
sometime corporate mantra and ethos: think different.
So, instead of a standard biopic, we get three distinct time frames (with
occasional flashbacks interspersed), each a heightened, concertinaed version of
three product launches: 1984’s Macintosh personal computing revolution, 1988’s
NeXT costly gamble and 1998’s iMac redemption. And keeping the action backstage,
where Jobs’s personal and professional life threatens to shut down, is a bold
gambit, especially for a man who micro-managed the public presentation of
himself and his work.
As Jobs, Michael Fassbender is onscreen for virtually every second of the film.
Famously not first choice for the role (courtesy of the Sony email hacks, which
had Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio as favoured picks), Fassbender, unlike
previous Jobs incarnation Ashton Kutcher, looks nothing like his real-life
counterpart. But in every other aspect, this is a Kutcher upgrade. Fassbender
rides the distinctive rhythms and textures of Sorkin’s trademark spring-loaded
verbal sparring like a pro, offering us a vanity-free look at a man of
relentless focus, drive and disregard for any entity, breathing or binary coded,
outside his own creation. Yet he also reveals the wounded fragility that
underpins the (micro)chip on his shoulder and need for a computer, even a
lifestyle, that’s a “closed system.” Most impressively of all, it’s an
awards-bait performance that’s largely free from grandstanding, some achievement
when delivering one-liners as floridly catchy as Sorkin’s.
This is partly because Sorkin and Boyle keep Jobs in check, and Fassbender on
his toes, with a crack ensemble cast. Every scene is effectively a standoff
between Jobs and an aggrieved colleague or family member, be it Apple co-founder
Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), desperately appealing for recognition for his team;
browbeaten programmer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), often at the sharp end
of Jobs’s perfectionist demands; or impoverished ex-girlfriend Chrisann
(Katherine Waterston) and her young daugher Lisa. When faced with a claim that
Lisa is his daughter, Jobs not only denies paternity but sets out to disprove it
(and defame his ex) with an algorithm that suggests 28% of American men could be
responsible. Father of personal computing? Sure. Dad of the Year? Not so much.
Still, it’s this gradual acceptance of, and softening towards, Lisa that marks
its protagonist’s character arc here (there’s no reference to his later lasting
marriage and three children) and this overly emphatic, cathartic ending is the
film’s only real glitch. Structurally, Steve Jobs adopts a blatantly theatrical
(and this text is a stage play, and probably a musical, waiting to happen) angle
of “emotional truths” rather than actuality. You want documentary realism? Byte
me, say the filmmakers. Paradoxically, it’s a much fairer film than
The Social
Network, whose blithe erasure of Mark Zuckerberg’s ongoing relationship with his
girlfriend (and now wife) allowed Sorkin to push his cute, but inherently
made-up, theory about a jilted creep substituting virtual connection for human
intimacy.
And yet Steve Jobs absolutely works as a film in its own right. Boyle, so often
the energizer bunny of his snap-crackle-pop-culture movies, keeps the action
flowing, walking and talking but without undue gimmicks. Each time period is
discreetly shot in a different format – grainy 16mm 4:3 ratio for the 1984
beginnings, 35mm film for the showy ‘80s and clean HD for the ‘90s i-digital
revolution. The framing and design also echo Jobs’s gradual personal awakening,
from ‘84’s dingy community college interiors, to the airy, arched spaces of
1998’s San Francisco Davies Symphony Hall (and rooftop exteriors!). Daniel
Pemberton’s score blends electronica with classical (neatly chiming with Jobs’s
defense of his undefined role that “musicians play their instruments; I play the
orchestra.”). As with Apple’s best inventions, all the various elements work in
seamless synchronicity to create something special. You get the feeling that,
despite its often-unflattering overview, Steve Jobs is a product that even Steve
Jobs would sign off on.
Neither hagiography nor hatchet job, Steve Jobs is a dazzling artistic
interpretation of one of the modern techno-giants and a terrific piece of
filmmaking, led by a never-better Michael Fassbender in the lead role. It’s The
Social Network 2.0 and one of the year’s best films.
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