Film review no.28 - Steve Jobs (2015)

 

Steve Jobs (2015)

Rating - 15

Director - Danny Boyle

Written by - Aaron Sorkin

Based on the biography ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson

Starring - Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels

Run time - 122 minutes

Steve Jobs is a 2015 drama biopic about Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. The movie is set over three years at three important product launches in his career - 1984: the launch of the Apple Macintosh, 1988: the launch of Jobs’ rival company NeXT after his dismissal from Apple, and 1998: the launch of the iMac several years after NeXT had been bought over by Apple and Jobs’ became CEO. Throughout his professional career, the only person said to get through to Jobs’ personally was Apple’s Head of Marketing Joanna Hoffman, who accompanies him throughout the story and is described as his ‘work wife’. The underlying subject of the movie though is about his relationship with his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs after he strictly denied that he was her father. The real Steve Jobs passed away in 2011 after a battle with Neuroendocrine cancer.

The titular character is portrayed by Irish actor Michael Fassbender and Joanna Hoffman is played by Kate Winslet. They both earned Oscar nominations - Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress - for their performances in the movie. Seth Rogen plays Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs’ Apple co-founder and friend, and Jeff Daniels plays former Pepsico and Apple CEO John Sculley. This biopic is said to be approved by both Wozniak and Sculley in real life. 

This movie is a gem, with some fantastic performances from the ensemble cast (especially Fassbender, who brought so much charisma to the role), a quality script by Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote the Oscar-winning The Social Network, about the creation of Facebook) and gorgeous direction and cinematography from Danny Boyle. It’s a really captivating watch, even though the events in the movie are said to be historically inaccurate due to creative license, this still shows insight into the professional and personal life of the mastermind behind the company which created many of technologies most revolutionary products of the last 50 years we use in our day-to-day lives more now than ever.

Score - 9/10