Underrated Gems: Steve Jobs

 

        In 2011, Steve Jobs died from cancer. Many remember him as an innovator for technology such as reinventing the computer and phone. For some, he was considered a hero despite not really knowing him personally. Two films were released to showcase the innovator, Jobs in 2013, and Steve Jobs in 2015. The first one was not great and the one for today’s review bombed in the box office. While the films damper the general audience on watching any film about Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs offered a glimpse as to who the man was. SPOILERS will appear in the review. 

1. Reality Distortion Field

        At a first glance, Michael Fassbender does not look anywhere near as the title character. I feel it’s a compromise since he absolutely nails the person. He easily steals the show since he perfectly acts and delivers his lines just how the actual guy acts. I think the thing he does well is that the whole product presentations just show how anal he was with making sure everything was perfect. 

        He has a confidant Joanna who is the person who really tries to level with Steve about product expectations and to really guide him down when he’s being a total dick to the computer engineers. It would be one thing where we had a film where we see Steve Jobs from college dropout to making an Apple product. Here though, his interaction perfectly captures just who Steve was for the people who never knew him. A complete asshole, for one thing he is very blunt and has the my way or the highway attitude. 

        The thing that spotlights the whole movie is him being a Dad. Or the opposite since he claims that his daughter Lisa isn’t his. This is the part that a whole lot of people weren’t even aware. If you read the biography by Walter Isaacson, he delves into the relationship between Jobs and Chrisann Brennan. Here, he attempts to dress down his ex by really justifying the Mac and how he misspoke when he said that Brennan slept with a determined number of men. 

        It’s one thing to make the film completely biased and to really deify him. Here, the film presents him as such, he’s poorly built. The movie goes out of its way to explain why he has such a big issue with control and making sure everything has to be perfect. He thinks in a different way most people would see as not possible. In context, when we start the film he stresses that the Macintosh has to say “Hello”. Joanna wants to skip the feature while engineer Andy Hertzfeld attempts to explain to Jobs why the computer can’t do that function.

2. A Story Told in 3 Product Announcements

        As I said earlier, the film has three product launches as a way to start a new act. Each has a different music style and how it was shot. It makes the setting, even though it takes place in a theater and backstage authentic for the most part. The really interesting aesthetic is the upgrade in film footage that was used in the successive acts. In the first two acts, they were filmed on 16 and 35mm footage. Which helps explain why in the Mac launch there was a grainy look to it. Then in the last one was shot on digital. 

        As with most movies based on actual people, the best ones are focused on an event that made the person famous. Steve Jobs does that but in an interesting way such as with the launches of the Macintosh, the NeXT computer, and the iMac, we get to see just how the person has grown up and really come to terms with who he is. Part of it feels repetitive, but I think it allows for the character to grow and that makes the film endearing. Aside from meeting with Chrisann and CEO John Sculley, Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak shares the highlight of stealing a scene. In the final act, both Jobs and Wozniak argue about why Steve won’t acknowledge the Apple 2 team. Woz thinks that since Steve was kicked out that he’s doing it as a snub. While Jobs see it as them really hurting the company. 

        It goes to show just how complicated the legacy of Steve Jobs is. For one, he was an innovator who had fantastic ideas of using a computer. Although, he didn’t input any code or built anything, he was just the spokesman who really nailed the pitch of getting people to want to buy an Apple computer. This film really does a great job with setting the record straight with just who he was as a person. 

3. Altered History

        The biggest complaint in the movie is that the events that happened on film didn’t really happen. Mind you, I feel that anyone could be bored when Steve is preparing himself with a product presentation with no technical difficulty or personal beef that needs to be settled. It’s a creative liberty that is justified since it shows just who Steve was. I hate to really sound like a broken record when stating that since that’s really what made the film work. For drama sake and for being invested with what’s going on. 

4. Overall

        With all that being said, this is one of the best films that came out in 2015. I feel that the Ashton Kutcher movie made more of an imprint in pop culture due to him looking like Steve Jobs. Although, this movie delivers on nailing just who the character was. I think if The Revenant wasn’t around, Michael Fassbender would’ve won the academy award for best actor. Regardless, this is one of the best underrated gems in the 2010s.

        Steve Jobs gets a four out of five.