Steve Jobs is an asshole. That is the takeaway from the latest biopic starring Michael Fassbender with Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels. Not just an asshole, but a megalomaniac so focused on his career and his image of himself that he refuses to be a father to his child until people rub his nose in it. While most looks at the life of Jobs refuse to stop short of hero worship, this one wants to lean in the other direction,
I think I shall call it 'Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs: The Woz Strikes Back'. Directed by Danny Boyle and based on the book by Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs is trademark Sorkin. Three scenes taking place backstage at the product launches for the Mac in 1984, NeXT in 1988, and iMac in 1998 are full of his rapid-fire one on one banter climaxing with intense monologues.
This is where Seth Rogen really shines. While Fassbender is at first unconvincing as a young Jobs, Rogen is a natural for the jovial teddy bear co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. Each scene involves a confrontation between the two that not only defines their relationship but also metaphorically demonstrates the continuing war in the tech industry between the engineers who create and obsess over new inventions and the businessmen who set unrealistic expectations and push them to achieve. In each of these, Wozniak eloquently pushes for recognition and is rebuffed by a man consumed by his focus on minutiae who refuses to accept even the possibility of questioning himself.
As admired as Jobs has been in the world at large, Wozniak has been as loved by fellow engineers and nerds, and this is the first time on film where he doesn't fade into the background and obscurity. The plight of engineers working under Jobs is well represented, and as an old techie, the shop talk, especially in the first act had me giggling as they dealt with too little RAM or not having the proprietary tools needed to open the Mac case. The movie isn't named 'Steve Wozniak', but it shows as much growth and character development for him as for Jobs.
Jobs was such an intense figure with such a rich career it could take half a dozen films to begin to really cover his life. No one will ever know what exactly was going through his head most of the time, and Sorkin's approach is much like skipping a stone across a very deep pool. Each skip provides rich detail at the surface. A lot of information is densely compressed into these scenes including Jobs' relationship with Apple CEO John Sculley and his grudging relationship with his daughter Lisa. Much less time is devoted to his work at NeXT, where he the operating system that was to become Mac OSX, and his founding of Pixar was entirely unmentioned.
So, as a businessman, as a friend, and as a father this is an incomplete picture of Steve Jobs. As a character portrait, it is painted in a harsh and unflattering light, but where visual analogies fail me perhaps a musical concept is better suited. It is a revelatory ballad that enlightens and entertains, or a super-single that might make you want to buy the whole album.
