Daddy Dearest

For a biopic about one of the modern era’s most fascinating, most influential figures, Steve Jobs is a fine...family drama?

Yep...and that is one of the least confounding things about the Aaron Sorkin-written, Danny Boyle-directed film that finally opened wide today. This is a puzzling piece of cinema that will leave you thinking of Jobs (that other, Ashton Kutcher-led movie about the late Apple genius) rather fondly, which is weird because – hello! – this film has Michael Fassbender playing the guy, and the Fass is pretty fackin’ genius, too.

He is, but not in this case.

Here he looks out of place.

And totally not like Steve Jobs.

Evidently, that little detail was of little consequence to the filmmakers leading the project. If I am remembering the press leading up to today, Boyle and Sorkin, in particular, have said that they sought to capture the essence of a legend, not his ticks, which is why they went with the actor that did not end up passing on the project they thought was better-suited for the part and not the one who better resembled him.

OK, fine. I can work with that.

The but comes from the fact that Steve Jobs fails to shine a light on its subject in any comprehensive manner, in spite of being based on the acclaimed Walter Isaacson biography, which I understand, is (still) the definitive source on Jobs. This is a biopic that breaks the rules of biopics from the get-go because it doesn’t stick to a traditional mold for biographical storytelling. Lately, the trend has been to focus on certain key passages of a notable person’s life, rather than spinning a birth-to-death yarn that chronicles their accomplishments. Sorkin does that, but I cannot help but wonder if he, perhaps, was thinking he was living in 2115, a year in which I imagine a proposition like this one would have worked infinitely better.

The Oscard Social Network screenwriter has set the action of the film between 1984 and 1998, backstage before three seemingly pivotal Apply-product launches that end up turning into these no-better-moment opportunities for a handful of characters from Jobs’ personal and professional lives – including Chrisann Brennan (played by Katherine Waterston), an ex pleading with him to recognize he is the father of her daughter; Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (portrayed by Seth Rogen), and Jeff Daniels’ John Sculley, the company’s CEO from 1983 to 1993 – to request audiences with the guy they feel and think has done ’em some wrong.

Like, really?

Once you get past picturing how Alejandro G. Iñárritu might have shot the behind-the-scenes drama you would not be wrong to anticipate a cameo by Jerry Springer. Or Sally Jessy Raphael, to be historically accurate.

I have to admire Sorkin’s gumption, to write such a squabble-happy script about a visionary beloved by the world. He was just a man, Steve Jobs, appears to say. He was just a man with really mundane problems, really f---ed-up issues, and really impertinent people close to him.

The only element that works super-well in the film is Kate Winslet. She, too, plays an actual Apple figure, Joanna Hoffman, the company’s marketing maven and Jobs’ right-hand woman/confidante. Winslet is unburdened by playing a familiar face at the global level, so her portrayal comes across as more convincing, which, I know, that is a very odd thing to say about a performance in a biopic.

Alas, this isn’t your typical biopic, remember?

Now...can we focus on Fassbender’s Macbeth? Clearly, if he is to court Oscar again this year, it will have to be with that upcoming release.

My Rating **

Photo: Universal Pictures.