“I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all” – Joni Mitchell
With Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin adds another chapter to his hopefully ongoing saga of American tech. First, Mark Zuckerberg went from quirky Harvard nerd to friendless billionaire, changing the way people connected for better and worse. Now, Steve Jobs goes from Apple inventor, to Apple reject, to Apple savior. We all know the story of Apple, those of us who grip our iPhones, type on our MacBooks, listen to our iTunes, tap on our iPads. We know these beautiful items are credited as the milestones Jobs introduced to reinvigorate Apple when he was brought back to save it from bankruptcy. We also know the withered cancer victim who fought back death until it finally carried him under. This film isn’t about those stories. It isn’t about how nature casually discards even the most valued among us. As Bob Marley was quoted as having said, “all the money in the world can’t buy you a minute more of life.”
Sorkin’s Steve Jobs is about how we measure success and failure. Jobs could not really achieve greatness without recognizing the most important thing in his life: his biological daughter Lisa Brennan. His success could not be measured by the pretty toys alone. His success had to come from his willingness to connect with his own flesh and blood. Much is made in the film of Jobs’ adoption as one of the main reasons he’s having so much trouble with his own daughter. This damaged relationship is played out alongside Jobs’ career highs and lows. None of his successes will matter in the end if he can’t do the right thing, which means more than just writing a check. That is probably the most surprising thing of all — how Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin launched an excavation to find Steve Jobs’ heart.
Danny Boyle’s version of Steve Jobs looks very different from what David Fincher’s would have looked like. It’s impossible to say whether one is better than the other would have been. Boyle gives the film over to the writing and to the film’s lead performance, a stunning knockout by Michael Fassbender as Jobs. Boyle gives us breathtaking shots of Jobs in various stages of his professional life. He filmed nearly the whole thing in three different theaters in San Francisco and much of the action is confined to those spaces.
Boyle is strong on humanity in his work, which helps explain why this telling of Jobs life is rooted so deeply in the women he’s surrounded himself with — chief among them, Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, a key figure in helping Jobs hold his business together. She is more here — work wife, mother figure, teacher. Winslet has one of the film’s best scenes where she can’t watch this man mistreat his daughter for one more minute. Either fix it, she says, or I’ll go work … “anywhere I want.”
Fassbender spits out Sorkin’s dialogue like an ice cube maker — each withering insult sticking its landing. Jobs suffered no fools. This is not a story that sugarcoats his past. He is, in many ways, a monster who feeds on ego and builds machines that do not cooperate with other machines but are closed systems unto themselves. Fassbender’s Jobs is focused on one thing: making his work a success. What friendships he has are mostly about his work. He isn’t freed from the theater to go live his life, not ever. What life? Jobs has nothing but Apple. That is, until he eventually figures out that there is one thing he helped bring into the world. He has to change to access that primal human relationship.
Steve Jobs has the look and feel of a three-act play with a stage, a backstage, an adoring crowd and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of dialogue. Sorkin and Boyle have found a way to tell this familiar story as a kind of talk opera. Dramatic speech and monologues take up so much room there isn’t much left for anything else. It’s a high wire act that might leave some feeling left behind. Somehow, though, Boyle pulls it off not by backing off the speechifying but by leaning into it and allowing it to sing.
Boyle brings out memorable turns from the supporting actors, Seth Rogan and Jeff Daniels among them. As is almost always the case with Sorkin’s work they are all speaking the same language drawn from the same rhythm and vocabulary. To some this is Sorkin overkill but the same could be said for the best of them — David Mamet, Edward Albee, Paddy Chayefsky and even William Shakespeare. Sorkin is not trying to do anything but write in his own style, thus the film’s exceptional dialogue leaves its mark as profoundly as Jobs himself left his.
With propulsive score by Daniel Pemberton, and cinematography by Alwin H. Küchler, Boyle is not working with his usual team on Steve Jobs. Boyle is trying something new here in making a film built almost entirely on dialogue. This is a film made up of what Danny Boyle called “gestures” to the real people involved. They aren’t trying to make a biopic here but rather depict a kind of symbolic, ongoing conflict between the icon and the man. There are playful moments in the film and emotional highs that catch you off guard. Boyle’s enthusiasm and zest for life combined with Sorkin’s energy and verbal swordplay make Steve Jobs breathtaking and relentless at the same time.
In America we want our heroes to shimmer. We want them to emerge as gods, not monsters. We want them to tell their story of success that celebrates the tenants of the American dream. We need that dream to come true. A film like this one is a reminder that you can’t pick and choose the builders of this country or that dream. They sometimes emerge as broken people, whose humanity is buried underneath layers of ambition. When the spark of genius does emerge, however, one can do nothing but stand back and applaud with admiration a man who could do that much with his imagination.
Paddy, I also believed for a moment, though not from the trailers, just what was on paper, that it could have been a big misfire due to the pedigree. Sorkin can over-write but he needs a fantastic director to reign him in (like Fincher and Miller, though I can’t tell where Sorkin’s writing on Moneyball ended and Zaillian’s began) and Boyle’s style very nearly goes overboard in most everything he does but somehow pulls a magic trick and makes his movies work (I know not everybody loves even his critically acclaimed movies). Plus Boyle needs somebody as imaginative behind the camera and in the editing room as he is. I’m just glad everything came together for this movie and I’m looking forward to seeing it.
I’m a Boyle and a Sorkin huge huge fan and this movie didn’t convince me a bit. I find it an intellectual soap opera, redundant and dull. As Sasha said it’s not a movie about Apple but it’s not about Steve Jobs’ vision or work either and most importantly, because the film seems to aim to go there, it is not an exploration on the private man, whoever he was, and his private relationships, because it shows only and sadly a bunch of movie characters playing the same lines to each other for a couple of hours…
What a wordy let down this is.
I, too, am surprised. I’d expected this to be a high-concept dud, a blustery showcase of style over substance, over-written by Aaron Sorkin and over-directed by Danny Boyle. Glad to read, from many sources, that it’s anything but.
Disappointed that Boyle isn’t working with Anthony Dod Mantle on this one though – sure, from the trailers, Alwin Kuchler looks to have done a very nice job with the cinematography, but no doubt about it ADM is one of the very best in the business, and to think what he’d have achieved with the material seems so much more satisfying than virtually anything any other DP could achieve!
Withholding judgement on Michael Fassbender’s accent until I see the film. It’s hit or miss in his other films, and the trailers were not at all promising on this topic, but I’ll wait and see…
I hope this film does not turn into Les Miserables. In other words, it gets strong praise minutes after the screening has ended, later critics write scathing reviews.
I really hope this is the real deal for Fassbender. *fingers crossed*
Whoa. Totally unexpected (for me anyways) at how glowing the reviews are for Boyle, Sorkin and Fassbender’s contributions to the film. I still don’t very much care. I hope everything changes once the lights go off and I submit to these men. Until then I’m still team Fassy in MACBETH.
This has been one of my most anticipated of the year. I didn’t like Trance, but Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours are my favorites of Boyle’s work and this seems to be as strong. It’ll be great to see Fassbender come close to the win, and this could be Winslet and Boyle’s first nominations since they won back in 2008.
So psyched for this. Loving the reactions and early reviews. Fassbender with an Oscar-caliber performance. Winslet back in the game. Rogen impressing. Sorkin’s (!!!) script. Boyle’s direction. The subject matter. I’m ALL aboard the Steve Jobs ride for the next 5 months.
I really know very little about Steve Jobs. I never got why he was a hero to people when he died. So I really won’t be able to judge Fassbender’s performance against anything. I’ll be glad to see what he does in the film though. It sounds like he did a great job. Best Actor. Always too crowded. If it were up to me, I might cancel all the other categories and just give all the statues to the best acting performances of the year. So, don’t make it up to me.
“the damnedest and surest bet for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the new performance by cinematic icon Kate Winslet ”
🙂
“Michael Fassbender is so criminally underrated by the Academy ”
Is he? Or is it just that he’s relatively new? Maybe they just didn’t get around to him yet.
Homer,
I know right? It’s such a dumb thing to do, jump into easy conclusions judging simply from a trailer. Besides, with actors of Fassbender’s caliber you’re pretty much guaranteed a performance of high quality no matter the quality of the film every single time. It’s great to hear the film got so many raves. Can’t wait to watch it!
I’m really pleased with the positive reviews Michael Fassbender has received out of Telluride. He had a lot at stake in proving his capabilities due to the Sony email dramas that led to him taking on the Steve Jobs role. People were quick to point out how he didn’t look like Jobs (as if that mattered) as an indication that he couldn’t possibly be convincing. Well, they’ve all been proven wrong. I’m glad that Fassbender is back in the Oscar chatter.
Another great read.
We have our front runner. Jobs was an Industry guy, which serves the Academy voters’ need for self-congratulation, and Boyle had the last wire to wire winner, both points obvious before the film was seen. The heavy reliance on dialogue will help and hurt in the campaign. Sounds like it could be a thing, but it could be an advantage among voters who watch the contenders on small screens.
The film’s being piling up some pretty superlative reactions and has everything going for it. Boyle’s London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony contained a sequence on the digital revolution and social media, culminating in an appearance by Tim Berners Lee – and Steve Jobs seems to be a continuation of that theme. He is the best director around of unlikely material (heroin addicts in Edinburgh, zombies in England, an Indian boy on Who Wants to be a Millionaire etc). Sorkin writes witty, captivating and intelligent dialogue like no one else. Fassbender could be compelling if all he were reading were the telephone directory. This seems the first Oscar nomination certainly of the awards season, perhaps even the film to beat.
Great review! I loved Boyles 127 hours, and I’ve been a fan of Fass since Shame. I couldn’t help but let loose a huge smile while reading this, I’m so incredibly excited!
Stergios,
You’re so damn right, Fassbender is one of the best actors right now! I never had any doubts that he would give a great performance, unlike some people who , only judging by the trailer, were already taking conclusions hastily…
Michael Fassbender is so criminally underrated by the Academy that there has to be a stop. The man is simply among the most ferociously commited and wildly talented actors of his or frankly any generation and after the outrageous snubs he had with his bravura turns in films like Hunger and Shame he more than deserves to win a Best Actor Oscar this time around with either this or Macbeth. And I hope to God Kate Winslet will return to The Oscars for the Best Supporting Actress category. Pretty much every review I’ve read about the film suggests she’s incredible.
Steve Jobs (2015, dir. Danny Boyle) will be, as far as I can tell from this wave of reviews and social media discourse, the damnedest and surest bet for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the new performance by cinematic icon Kate Winslet (Finding Neverland, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Winslet plays the role of Joanna Hoffman, a fascinating brainiac whose resolute intellect makes her a key sparring partner for Steve Jobs. This is not cinema’s first Joanna Hoffman – that would be Abigail McConnell (Meet Me in Space, contestant on episode 49, season 38, “The Price is Right”) in Jobs (2013) – but this may be the interpretation that brings home Oscar gold!
Steve Jobs (2015) may also earn nominations/awards in categories such as screenplay, editing, etc.
– Watermelons
She was the best thing in the movie (and that’s saying a lot)
Can another stunning performance from Fassbender, combined with those stored in the bank for which he was not even nominated (Hunger, Shame) and wrongly lost (12 Years a Slave) finally mean Oscar gold? Somebody is going to look pretty silly if it doesn’t.
So Sasha, how do Rogen’s chances look for a supporting nod??
Sasha—if you were writing about applying undercoat to box-girder bridges I would read it.