The public has always been interested in Steve Jobs. From his first foray into the public eye with the Apple II, rising to public notoriety with Apple’s famous Macintosh Superbowl ad through his firing and eventual return to make the company an international giant. In the years since his untimely death of pancreatic cancer in 2011, the mythos and drama surrounding him has only continued to grow.
Steve Jobs was based on the book by Walter Issacson and is written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men)and directed by Danny Boyle(Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire). The film is structured around three key product release event that occurred in Jobs’ career between the years of 1984 and 1999. Limiting the scope of the story with the narrative structure makes the film feel a lot like a 3 act play as it progress, but also gave the creators a way to focus on certain aspects of Steve Jobs’ personality and history, rather than trying to cover every detail.
In addition to Jobs, played very credibly by Michael Fassbender (X-men,Inglorious Bastards) there are a group of people key to the events of the time, that thread their way through the story. They include Kate Winslet (Titanic, Revolutionary Road)in a show stealing performance as his long suffering assistant Joanna Hoffman, Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley.
In the opening event from 1984, the release of the original Macintosh, we see the conflict between Jobs and Wozniak as Jobs tries to steer the company to follow his vision of a closed system, “friendly” personal computer. The company had just caused marketing commotion with it’s revolutionary Super Bowl ad, but could not manage to translate buzz into actual sales. We’re shown a confrontation between Scully, Jobs and the Apple board, and Jobs is shown the proverbial door.
We next see Jobs as he has struck out on his own and is launch the Next computer in 1988. The NeXT Computer enclosure consisted of a 1-foot die-cast magnesium cube-shaped, black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as “The Cube”. Jobs made headlines with both the shape and the price with was a towering $6,500. A bit of wisdom from Joanna, a bit of conflict with Wozniak and a bunch of drama over why the Next was just another notch in Jobs belt as he surged on looking for the next great thing.
Also, interwoven into the triptych is the story of Jobs on again off again relationship with his daughter Lisa. He only reluctantly acknowledges her in the beginning, and as events unfold we see them both try to better understand how to relate to each other as parent and child, as they navigate the waters of confusion and obligation.
In the final act, Jobs has returned to Apple corporation during a time of chaos. He made difficult decisions about layoffs and cutbacks and the product launch for this portion of the story is launch of the original iMac in 1999. The machines won over consumers with their playful appearance and user friendly features, finally proving true at least some of Jobs earlier notions about marketing and product design.
Overall, Steve Jobs comes out to be a movie that diverges from the run of the mill biopic. Sorkin fans will be happy with the snappy dialog, and numerous scenes where the characters hold walking conversations. In addition to the narrative structure, the director Danny Boyle used 3 different filming formats; 16mm, 35mm and digital to emphasize the change in technology during the arc of the story, a subtle but effective way of noting the passing years. With the cherry picking of the events, and the fact that the subject was a polarizing figure, even those who were eye witnesses to the events detailed have widely varying accounts. Some hard-core fans may find fault in the fact that Jobs’ life isn’t explored in minute detail, but the choices the creators made were in the interest of telling a good story, which makes the film one of the most enjoyable we’ve seen this this year.
