Steve Jobs
2015
***
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Katherine Waterston, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sarah Snook, Perla Haney-Jardine
Aaron Sorkin's brilliant script for The Social Network managed to make the creation of Facebook fascinating. He is not able to repeat the feat with this unusual but mostly uninspired biopic of Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple. His story is told through three products launches: Apple Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT Computer in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. The three segments feature many the same characters, which include Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), John Sculley (CEO of Apple), Lisa Brennan (daughter), Chrisann Brennan (Lisa's mother), and Joanna Hoffman (marketing executive/voice of reason). There is no mistaking that the film was penned by Sorkin. There are people pacing the corridors, talking fast, and throwing catchy one-liners. Danny Boyle withholds his usual visual pyrotechnics to let the script do the work for him. If only something interesting was happening on screen. The film doesn't cover iPod and iPhone, which were real game changers. Instead it focuses on three archaic personal computers, two of which were mostly sitting on stock shelf. Jobs comes across as a stubborn and uncompromising businessman and an unpleasant human being. Like its protagonist, I formed no emotional attachment to anything. The performances are very good, though. Based on Walter Isaacson's authorised biography.
