Film Review: Expansive ‘Steve Jobs’ is a Marvel of a Movie

Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 16, 2015 - 2:11pm

CHICAGO – You don’t need CGI, entire cities being turned to rubble, or an army of assembling Avengers to make a great movie. All you need is a good story to tell and a team of people talented enough to tell it. Writer Aaron Sorkin, and Director Danny Boyle are just the right people to make “Steve Jobs” because their finished project positively springs to life on the screen.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Sorkin looks at Jobs’ life through the prism of three different product launches, the original Macintosh, NeXt, and the iMac. At all three he is visited by key figures in the history of Apple, in the forms of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Apple Engineer Andy (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels). The ingenious structure allows for us to see the rise, the fall, and the rebirth of his career and gives it more focus than it might have had as a straight cradle to grave biopic.

But the engine that drives this story is the conversations between Jobs (Michael Fassbender) and his director of marketing Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet, sporting an eastern European accent). She refers to herself as his work wife and the two navigate Sorkin’s crackling dialogue and walk and talks with impressive skill. These are not two people discussing talking points, or shouting at one another, but rather two people with very well formed worldviews having spirited discussions. And this extends to all of Jobs dialogues with the three main figures from his past. The difference is as distinct as the difference between sitting in on an informative discussion and whatever passes for discussion on cable news.

”Steve Jobs” opens in Chicago on October 16th, and everywhere on October 23rd. Featuring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels and Katherine Waterston. Screenplay by Aaron Sotkin. Directed by Danny Boyle. Rated “R”