THE TRIALS OF JOBS
Fassbender embodies Apple founder’s genius
STEVE JOBS ★★★★ 1/2 Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen Director: Danny Boyle Duration: 122 minutes
It’s impossible not to recognize the F sharp major chord is the noise a Macintosh computer makes when it boots up. It is the sound of creation. And echoes of its hum infuse the soundtrack of Steve Jobs, an astonishing creation in its own right.
Where to begin to give credit? Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay is a rattle-and-bang affair with lines that fly by so quickly, you’re left 10 minutes later wondering if they actually made any sense.
“Coach lands on the runway at exactly the same time as first class,” Jobs barks at one point to his head of marketing, who responds that she has no idea what he’s on about.
Then there’s director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours), given the thankless task of somehow making all this talk-talk look as interesting as it sounds. And he does: one key scene takes place with a deluge outside a wall of windows, as though it were filmed beneath Niagara Falls. Another frames Jobs beneath translucent lighting panels, making him appear trapped in one of his Bondi Blue first-generation iMacs.
The film’s structure is the antithesis of a biopic. In three acts of 40 minutes each we watch Jobs prepare for the launch of three iconic products: the original Macintosh in 1984; the NeXT Computer, developed during Jobs’ time away from the company and unveiled in 1988; and the first iMac from 1998, the descendent of which, may sit on your desk today. Each time, the scene ends with Jobs taking the stage.
As such, we are given a window into just two hours of his life, with a few flashbacks thrown in. The famed garage Apple started in makes an appearance, albeit a brief one. The full Sorkin biopic treatment would presumably take as long as Jobs’ existence. Viewers should keep in mind that this is an impressionistic snapshot, not a video recording.
It remains an instructive portrait, however. In the first scene — shot in 16 mm; the film then moves to 35 mm and then highdef digital — Jobs is visited by his ex-girlfriend, played with an endearing fragility by Katherine Waterston. She is seeking more than the paltry court-mandated support payments for her and their daughter, whom the multimillionaire was a long time in admitting was even his.
He alternately bullies her and ignores her pleas, but then caves just as quickly, with as little thought as he had previously withstood her. His offer of more money and a house seems like kindness, though showing gratitude for it would be like thanking a hailstorm for putting ice in your drink.
The three acts feature a rotating cast of returning players. Kate Winslet is the above-mentioned marketing executive and the only person remotely capable of steering the ocean liner that was Jobs. Jeff Daniels is John Sculley, Apple’s CEO in the Macintosh days. Michael Stuhlbarg is Andy Hertzfeld, a put-upon computer scientist. And Seth Rogen goes full-beard to play Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Each functions as a different facet of Jobs’ conscience, a psychological subroutine whose constant looping and crashing may have been the biggest flaw in the man’s operating system. Delivering warnings, offering unheeded advice, or in Woz’s case just asking for a bit of recognition for the team that created the Apple II, they get treated by Jobs as the pests they’re not.
If that structure seems too easy, Sorkin beats critics to the punch with a line of dialogue that undercuts his own artifice. Says Jobs: “It’s like five minutes before every launch, everyone goes to a bar and gets drunk and tells me what they really think.”
You know what? It is like that. There’s another issue to be had with the film’s rosy-glow final note, but that’s just Hollywood, a straight shot down the I-5 from Apple in Cupertino.
I haven’t yet named the actor who breathes life into this character. It is future Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender, who, for the record, looks almost nothing like the man he plays.
Fassbender’s performance transcends appearance to embody the coding of Jobs. From his insistence that the exit lights be turned off in an auditorium — against the fire code, but leading to a much more dramatic reveal — to his obsession over making the NeXT a perfect cube, never mind what’s inside, to the bizarre practice of washing his feet in the toilet, here is an embodiment that encapsulates genius, moving beyond eccentricity and into something approaching pathology.