"I sat in a garage and invented the future because artists lead and hacks ask for a show of hands!"
- Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender), Steve Jobs
Making a biopic is never an easy thing to do. A life does not fit into three acts, snappy dialogue does not come naturally to everyone and if the subject of the film is still alive, a satisfactory conclusion is hard to create. Still, when a movie about a global technical innovator who might not be as nice as they think they are needs to be made, Aaron Sorkin is Hollywood's answer to the call. David Fincher's The Social Network was a rousing success, both critically and financially and resulted in Sorkin getting an Oscar for his screenplay. Whereas Mark Zuckerberg is still alive (and constantly fighting the image of him from the film), Sorkin chose to adapt a biography of a recently deceased man who invented devices that link us all but may have been difficult to work with: Steve Jobs.
The one problem being that there had already been a major motion picture that depicted the life of Steve Jobs: Jobs, released in the two years Sorkin was researching and writing his film (and also getting "The Newsroom" on HBO), starring Ashton Kutcher in the title role. The film was not well-received, though people could not deny Kutcher's resemblence to the real life Jobs. There was also the long and often disastrous road of getting Steve Jobs to the screen. Initially set up at Columbia Pictures, the same studio that released Social Network, Sorkin tried to recruit David Fincher to direct. Fincher vowed he would not make the film unless he could get his first choice for the title role: Christian Bale (an actor who is no stranger to a bad reputation). Bale had other film schedules to honor and both he and Fincher passed on the project. Leonardo DiCaprio was also considered (an actor who is no stranger to playing troubled billionaire inventors), but passed to do The Revenant. But worse was to come: thanks to the massive controversy behind a film directed by Steve Jobs star Seth Rogen, The Interview, Sony - the parent corporation of Columbia Pictures - put the film in turnaround in order to restrategize their film slate. Universal gladly picked up the film, hired Academy Award winner Danny Boyle and cast X-Men actor Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs. Filming took an unheard of two months on schedule.
Making a biopic is never an easy thing to do. A life does not fit into three acts, snappy dialogue does not come naturally to everyone and if the subject of the film is still alive, a satisfactory conclusion is hard to create. Still, when a movie about a global technical innovator who might not be as nice as they think they are needs to be made, Aaron Sorkin is Hollywood's answer to the call. David Fincher's The Social Network was a rousing success, both critically and financially and resulted in Sorkin getting an Oscar for his screenplay. Whereas Mark Zuckerberg is still alive (and constantly fighting the image of him from the film), Sorkin chose to adapt a biography of a recently deceased man who invented devices that link us all but may have been difficult to work with: Steve Jobs.
The one problem being that there had already been a major motion picture that depicted the life of Steve Jobs: Jobs, released in the two years Sorkin was researching and writing his film (and also getting "The Newsroom" on HBO), starring Ashton Kutcher in the title role. The film was not well-received, though people could not deny Kutcher's resemblence to the real life Jobs. There was also the long and often disastrous road of getting Steve Jobs to the screen. Initially set up at Columbia Pictures, the same studio that released Social Network, Sorkin tried to recruit David Fincher to direct. Fincher vowed he would not make the film unless he could get his first choice for the title role: Christian Bale (an actor who is no stranger to a bad reputation). Bale had other film schedules to honor and both he and Fincher passed on the project. Leonardo DiCaprio was also considered (an actor who is no stranger to playing troubled billionaire inventors), but passed to do The Revenant. But worse was to come: thanks to the massive controversy behind a film directed by Steve Jobs star Seth Rogen, The Interview, Sony - the parent corporation of Columbia Pictures - put the film in turnaround in order to restrategize their film slate. Universal gladly picked up the film, hired Academy Award winner Danny Boyle and cast X-Men actor Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs. Filming took an unheard of two months on schedule.
Taking place at three different product launches in three different years, Steve Jobs (Fassbender) seems to be having three different worse days of his life. The world-changing technology he wants to demonstrate is not working, there is discontent in the ranks, and to make matters worse an ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston) of his dragging a little girl (Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, and Makenzie Moss) with her demands more and more of his money. His best friend and co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) pleads with him to acknowledge the team behind Apple II, something Jobs refuses to do. His self-appointed "work wife", Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) acts as Steve's conscience, his sounding board, his verbal bodyguard and is getting fed up with him. But ultimately, it is the little girl named Lisa who is trying to win Steve's heart, if indeed he has one.
Between this new film and the Kutcher movie, there is a more than decent Steve Jobs film out there. But this one is not it. Where The Social Network succeeded in presenting arguments between multiple groups of people and let the audience decide who was telling the truth, Steve Jobs lays the story as if it were divine truth (Jobs is sarcastically referred to as God in the film, but asks who could love a God who sends His Son on a "suicide mission"). The trump card that Sorkin is using is that the real-life Steve Wozniak supported the making of this film and not the Kutcher film in which Steve Jobs is portrayed as a billionaire who just so happens to also be a struggling artist (and is portrayed in a more positive light). The opening act of the film, in which a technical glitch resulting in the Macintosh not being able to say the word, "Hello" results in Jobs angrily threatening to ruin Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg)'s public standings, never happened. "Creation myths need a devil," Rashida Jones' character says in the Sorkin-written The Social Network. Clearly he has not strayed too far, despite Sorkin's protesting that the film "...is a painting, not a photograph". If you put everyone in a closed room and talked to them, there is a high probability that they would all be different than they are in public. Why? It is less formal, nobody is around and there is also no proof any of it actually happened.
The cast does well with the disappointingly stagy material. While Fassbender strikes me as a little too good-looking to play the gaunt Jobs (most notably his head is less round), he can definitely play the smartest guy in the room. His Jobs seems endlessly frustrated that he cannot take people apart like his computers and make them do what he wants. Kate Winslet disappears in her role as Hoffman, the woman devoted to her boss though demonstrating she should be fired by her attitude towards him. Seth Rogen (whose Interview film resulted in this film getting bumped from Columbia to Universal) seems to be chasing the Oscar that Jonah Hill has (somehow) been nominated for twice already. Rogen essentially has three scenes with Fassbender and all of them can be condensed down to...
Steve Jobs predictably "paints" its subject in a not-so-nice light. Sorkin's screenplay wants to invent reason upon reason to not like the guy we all know and love from his product speeches on YouTube. Whether or not it is the truth, it all depends on if the film presents a compelling story and in truth, it does not. It is suitable for a stage play, not a multi-million feature film. The cast rises to the occasion, and Boyle wisely maintains control over his frame and does not distract with wacky visuals as his filmography might suggest. Contrary to popular belief, this movie will not make you want to throw away the Apple products we cannot seem to live without. Though if you can live without this movie, I would not blame you.
And one more thing... if you're interested in reading the facts versus the fiction, give this a read: http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/steve-jobs/.
WOZNIAK: Will you please publicly thank the people who built the only product Apple has made that has turned a profit?
JOBS: Not even if my life depended on it.
WOZNIAK: Okay. I'll go approve a movie that makes you look like a jerk now.It's quite amusing that Jeff Daniels is in this film because not only is he also in another film this month (that beat this film at the box office) directed by a man whose famous Apple 1984 commercial is shown in the film and Daniels' character directly critiques it. His lengthy debates with Jobs are the highlight of the film, demonstrating Boyle's proficiency as a director. However, the actress who caught my eye in the film is Perla Haney-Jardine, who plays the eldest version of Jobs' daughter, Lisa. The few people running Hollywood who saw this film have got to put her in more stuff (she had previously played the forgettable role of the Sandman's daughter in the infamous Spider-Man 3). There are very few performers who can essentially come out of nowhere and totally own a scene with an established actor and those last ten minutes of the film are jaw-dropping.
Steve Jobs predictably "paints" its subject in a not-so-nice light. Sorkin's screenplay wants to invent reason upon reason to not like the guy we all know and love from his product speeches on YouTube. Whether or not it is the truth, it all depends on if the film presents a compelling story and in truth, it does not. It is suitable for a stage play, not a multi-million feature film. The cast rises to the occasion, and Boyle wisely maintains control over his frame and does not distract with wacky visuals as his filmography might suggest. Contrary to popular belief, this movie will not make you want to throw away the Apple products we cannot seem to live without. Though if you can live without this movie, I would not blame you.
And one more thing... if you're interested in reading the facts versus the fiction, give this a read: http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/steve-jobs/.
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