Steve Jobs is like his products, when it works it works really well, however when it takes to long to ‘load’ you become slightly impatient.
Helmed by drama genius and tension expert Danny Boyle (127 hours, Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later), Steve Jobs is a self-titled ‘behind-the-scenes’ biopic style film about the brains of one of the biggest brands in technological history. Jobs is played Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave, X-Men: First Class), the frontman of the film, guiding the drama ahead of his multiple clients and colleagues; the personal assistant Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet – Titanic, Divergent), his partner Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak (Seth Rogen – The Interview, This is The End), the CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels – The Martian, Dumb and Dumber), the computer scientist Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg – Seven Psychopaths, Hugo), the ex Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston – Inherent Vice) and the daughter Lisa (Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, Perla Haney-Jardine).
Despite being a film, it is presented in the form of a theatre production; it pretty much takes place entirely on a stage, there is more drama than you expected it to have and is cut into three separate, but heavily linking acts. The weirdest thing about this structure and setting is that it works really well, in a way that most films wouldn’t be able to achieve. The first act takes place in the 1984 Macintosh launch where everything begins, igniting multiple strands of drama and instantly introducing the key characters. The second part moves forwards four years to the 1988 launch of the already doomed NeXT system, continuing the issues from the first launch, only with new complications added. Finally, progressing a total of fourteen years we land in 1998 for the historical and iconic launch of the iMac, where, once again, the drama remains and with a larger gap of ten years since the last launch, even more new twists and turns (just to complicate things further) and explain these in the middle of already existing arguments.
The cinematography is simple, yet at the same time genius. Due to the films style of long, continuous scenes, the angles and take lengths manage to maintain your attention without making you dizzy from the constant changing of perspective.
Michael Fassbender is another further climbing A list actor who has had a run of pole-position roles. Proving his worth, Fassbender puts his true persona aside to brilliantly portray the creative mastermind himself. Fassbender is known to be one of the kindest and thoughtful actors in Hollywood, and a favourite to work with among directors, yet ironically manages to show his talent by accurately showing the exact opposite traits in Jobs, who is known for his ‘lack of social skills’, to the say the least. With a running time of 122 minutes, Fassbender manages to survive the entire length without even slightly drooping the act or letting the accent slip, but instead delves deeper into the character with every passing minute. However it wasn’t just Fassbender that brought this film to life, the rest of the cast all brought their own attributes to build it up to its full potential.
The only real issue that I have with this film is the way that every occurrence with it is false in one way or another. As explained in this article (Spoiler Warning) by History vs Hollywood, very little of the film is accurate or actually happened. The previous spoiler warning also applies to the rest of this paragraph, however, it will not contain major spoilers. The film opens into an immediate dilemma at the 1984 Macinstosh launch whereby the Macintosh will not say ‘Hello’, automatically engages the audiences interest and exposes Jobs’ repellent personality. After about twenty minutes worth of panic and questioning whether or not it will work, they decide to slightly cheat and use a later version of the system for the demo. As this is a key scene and sets the tone for the rest of the film, it was quite disappointing to hear that no instance of the sort happened during the Macintosh launch. However, at the end of the day I am reviewing it on its ability as a film, as opposed to its historical accuracy.
As stated in previous posts, the score of a film is a vital piece that is often over-looked. However, in a similar style to that of The Man from U.N.C.L.E (and with the same composer), Daniel Pemberton shows his worth and artistic ability by creating a distinct link between score and the narrative. By this I mean that if you were to listen to the score on its own, it could almost instantly be identified as that of Steve Jobs. Pemberton achieved this by reverting back to the time of early computing, utilizing the ‘beep-boop’ and high frequency sounds associated with them, as well as a light synthesizer to to really hammer-home the setting of this film. Also, as seen in the trailer, Jobs states, “I play the orchestra.” Because of this, a large portion of the score can be recognized as the work of an orchestra. Furthermore, he makes the magnificent decision of proving that less is more by strategically layering the timbre according to the situation. The beauty of this soundtrack is the fact that even if you’re not a fan of listening to scores outside of the film, it is very soothing and uplifting to listen to. Pemberton hits another home run.
As a film it works really well, however in terms of factuality and it being based on a real person its riddled with issues. It would work a lot better purely as fictional film as it would not have the expectations and history to fulfil and live up to. However for the same purposes it would not particularly work on its own as it would not have the automatic publicity of having one of the most famous technological , and the concept of a film just about a company leader with a coach-load of problems would not be quite as appealing. Therefore it is faced with a paradoxical problem.
Overall, Steve Jobs is an entertaining drama that will grip you from start to finish, and despite its lack of historical accuracy will make you feel like you not only know the story, but also know Jobs and the rest of the group too.
8/10
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