Faced with adapting Walter Isaascson’s biography of Apple Computers co-founder Steve Jobs to the screen, writer Aaron Sorkin takes a peculiar but gratifying approach. Eschewing the panoramic view of most biopics, Sorkin’s screenplay narrows its field of view to the backstage drama of three product launches: the Apple Macintosh in 1984; Jobs’ own NeXT workstation in 1988; and the Apple iMac in 1998. This strategy permits director Danny Boyle to develop the story in an almost musical fashion: one melody, repeated three times with variations.
Steve Jobs is a verbose, full-throttle affair: Dense engineering jargon is delivered at spitfire velocity, while characters stride urgently and pace restlessly. Fortunately, the film is blessed with a capable cast who understand that the minutiae of processor speeds are incidental, while the passions at play are critical. Michael Fassbender’s Jobs is arrogant and ruthless, but also undeniably magnetic and forward-thinking. At each launch, the same people appear seeking an audience: fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogan), CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), software wizard Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), and Job’s daughter Lisa, whom he refused to acknowledge for many years. Shepherding them all is marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), who acts as Job’s majordomo and Girl Friday.
Like the superior The Social Network (also penned by Sorkin), Boyle’s film is not interested in sweeping portraiture or documentary persuasion, but in utilizing real-world figures to dissect notions of talent, ambition, and leadership. For Boyle, it’s his most polished film in almost a decade, and certainly one of his most structurally compelling and smartly choreographed features. Yet there’s a dismal predictability to the human drama of Sorkin’s script and unfortunate triteness to the film’s overarching theses. This leaves Steve Jobs feeling a bit like a sleek, powerful laptop that is used only to play solitaire.
Steve Jobs opens in wide release on Friday, October 23.
