¡®It¡¯s like five minutes before every launch, everyone goes to a bar and gets drunk and tells me what they really think,¡± laments Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) during the closing stretch of Danny Boyle¡¯s buoyant, breathless biopic. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has done an ingenious job of condensing Walter Isaacson¡¯s best-selling biography of the late Apple co-founder, though he has taken even bigger liberties than he did with the Facebook-themed ¡°The Social Network¡± in 2010.
Split into three sections, ¡°Steve Jobs¡± catches up with its hero as he prepares to go on stage for the launches of a trio of products that would define his career trajectory: the original Macintosh computer in 1984 (dud), the NeXT computer in 1988 (bigger dud) and the iMac in 1998 (third time lucky!).
In Sorkin¡¯s drastically telescoped view, each event becomes an emotional bottleneck for the notoriously brusque tech innovator, as he faces off with colleagues past and present, including fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), one-time CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) and his unflappable marketing executive, Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet). The film even contrives to have Jobs¡¯ estranged daughter turn up for every single launch,?which is a bit of a stretch.
Viewers who experience ardent adulation each time a new iPhone hits the market will lap it up, but others might wonder what all the fuss is about. The film exposes some of Jobs¡¯ foibles, but brushes them off as an unfortunate side effect of his genius. He gave us the iPod ¡ª how could he not be a god?
| Rating | |
|---|---|
| Run Time | 122 |
| Language | English |
| Opens | NOW PLAYING |
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