Steve Jobs [RSC Film Club 44]

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

This month we're delving into the filmography of Oscar winning director Danny Boyle thanks to @Con's nomination.  His is an incredibly varied filmography, from gritty drama to Bollywood musical through to sci-fi and feel-good family fare he's pretty much done it all.  The film we'll be watching, nominated by @djw180, is a biopic, that of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, also the title of the film.

Written by Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing fame, Steve Jobs stars Michael Fassbender in the title role.  The film covers the period in his life from 1984 up to the release of the iMac in 1998.  It co-stars Kate Winslet as Apple marketing exec Joanna Hoffman, Seth Rogen as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Jeff Daniels as Apple CEO John Sculley.  I've not seen this so I don't have much more to say, but I have seen David Fincher's The Social Network, about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, and I really enjoyed that even though it plays like a super-villain origin story.  I don't know if that will be a useful comparison to have in my head when watching this, but it's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this film.  

Boyle himself is kind of hit-or-miss for me.  There are films of his I love - Sunshine is an amazing sci-fi film - but when he misses I find his films kind of boring (The Beach, Yesterday).  But I do like more of his films than I don't and have high expectations of this film thanks to the writer and the stellar cast.  

he dropped out of a better school than i dropped out of

[djw180 6,980]

I nominated this because it's a film I hadn't seen before and co-stars one of my favourite actresses. I'd seen this advertised a number of times on streaming services but always ended up choosing to watch something else.

It's an interesting story. I have no idea how realistic it is. I work in IT and know people who think Steve Jobs walked on water and will happily pay whatever a Mac, iPhone etc is priced at. In this he comes across as somewhat of a megalomaniac. A visionary as well but not always getting things right. His obsession with how a product looks rather than how it actually functioned, to me, was stupid. He says towards the start of the film (in 1984 I think) that the product he is about to launch (I forget which one) would change the world. Well I would not say it did; most people used PCs not Macs. You could maybe say the iPhone changed the world, which came after this period this film covers, but not any other Apple product. He is clearly shown as having his flaws, e.g. his initial refusal to accept proper responsibility for his daughter.

The acting is good, particularly from Michael Fassbender in the lead role, Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman and I really liked Jeff Daniels as John Scully. The plot is very like a play, in 3 acts, each act is the launch of a different product. There is a bit of flash-back to how the earlier products were designed. Personally I would have liked more about the technical / IT side of things, whereas this film seemed mainly focussed on the business side. It is very slick looking though, like a Mac.

So I enjoyed it, but probably would not consider rewatching.

6/10

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

I agree with most of what you have to say @djw180, but I came out of this with a much higher regard for it than you.  It may even be my favourite Danny Boyle film now.  You called it a very slick film, and that is the perfect description of the direction, this film is an Apple product and for me it works perfectly.   The screenplay also matches this style, with everyone speaking in incredibly erudite monologues that is not at all how people actually speak, but it's so well written - with impeccable performances to match - that I can't pick a favourite scene from the whole film.  They're all good.  

That three act structure, very theatrical, turns the film into a series of confrontations between Fassbender's Jobs and the other main players.  He also has very distinct relationships with these people, and they all treat him differently, and there are some nice shifts in the dynamics of these relationships as time progresses.  What makes this all really work though is Fassbender.  His performance here is incredible.  It's a very nuanced performance, with some of the best moments with his daughter.  The scene where he teaches her how to use a computer was unexpectedly touching and humanising for who is perceived to be something of a megalomaniac.

What this film also speaks to, since we are celebrating him this month, is Boyle's versatility as a director.  This is totally unlike anything else he has done, which is something you can say about pretty much all of his films, and love them or hate them, that's something to be lauded.  For me this is up there with Sunshine and Trainspotting as one of his very best.  9/10

[Schumi6581 839]

21 hours ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

I agree with most of what you have to say @djw180, but I came out of this with a much higher regard for it than you.  It may even be my favourite Danny Boyle film now.  You called it a very slick film, and that is the perfect description of the direction, this film is an Apple product and for me it works perfectly.   The screenplay also matches this style, with everyone speaking in incredibly erudite monologues that is not at all how people actually speak, but it's so well written - with impeccable performances to match - that I can't pick a favourite scene from the whole film.  They're all good.  

That three act structure, very theatrical, turns the film into a series of confrontations between Fassbender's Jobs and the other main players.  He also has very distinct relationships with these people, and they all treat him differently, and there are some nice shifts in the dynamics of these relationships as time progresses.  What makes this all really work though is Fassbender.  His performance here is incredible.  It's a very nuanced performance, with some of the best moments with his daughter.  The scene where he teaches her how to use a computer was unexpectedly touching and humanising for who is perceived to be something of a megalomaniac.

What this film also speaks to, since we are celebrating him this month, is Boyle's versatility as a director.  This is totally unlike anything else he has done, which is something you can say about pretty much all of his films, and love them or hate them, that's something to be lauded.  For me this is up there with Sunshine and Trainspotting as one of his very best.  9/10

I'm no Apple fanboy but I have read the Steve Jobs biography a few years ago. That book made him come across as a bold pr*ck who was a master in getting the right people together. And then extracting (often not in a nice way) every drop of creativity and talent out of them to create his vision. I didn't like him after it 🙂

Your review makes me curious about the movie. I will try to watch it in the coming weeks.
 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Schumi6581

[Con 5,719]

Steve Jobs (2015)

In the hands of average filmmakers and writers, the opening sequence would usually disengage me almost immediately, as it quickly becomes a family drama that comes out of nowhere. But with the swift direction from Boyle. The forcibly engaging dialogue from Sorkin. And the amazing performances from everyone in the scene, but clearly standing out are Fassbender and the absolutely chameleon-like Winslet,(yes, it took me about 20 minutes to realize who the actress playing "Hoffman" was, since I didn't look at a cast list beforehand). The scene had so much energy visually and this is why, no matter how you feel about Danny Boyle, you cannot deny that he is a master with the camera and with story.

There is a reason I had submitted him in the Genre Nominations several times, Danny Boyle films make me watch to the end. I know that sounds ridiculous but I'll use some examples from before I became a film fan, you know, when I used to watch a film just for the shiny things on screen. I once watched a movie called The Beach (2000) and I thought it was beautifully shot with the beach and the island. I also did not hate the concept and although I only remember how the island becomes popular and goes to sh*t, the thing I remember the most about it was how entertained I was by it. Years later, I came across the reviews and saw how much it was brutalized, so I've been meaning to rewatch it. Then I watched a movie called  Millions (2004) about a kid who finds a bag of money, it was a bit hard to follow as a lot of the regional dialogue went over my head but I can tell you I watched the entire thing and to this day I have no idea why, it wasn't like I knew he had done 28 Days Later (2002), especially both being such contrasts in genre. My point being, I like the shiny things Mr. Sir Danny Boyle puts on screen, even more now that I appreciate all aspects of filmmaking more than I ever have. 

I knew Steve Jobs was a genius CEO at Apple. I knew he was the guy behind products that were changing lives all around me, although I at the time was more on the IBM Thinkpad team and hence Microsoft. But I remember seeing the iMac get released, but by then I had become the proud owner of a Compaq LTE laptop. And I’m not sure I would have bought an iMac, as I despised their egg design. I never bought an iPod, dancehall reggae songs weren’t on the iTunes, so I never got one of those, it wasn’t until the first iPad that I would own an Apple product. I lost days of my life on that thing. 

My favorite thing about this film was how unapologetic it was in showing us how flawed Steve was in his personal and professional life. I thought I was going to see how he used his genius to solve problems but instead I got to see how his genius caused him to instinctively reject any distractions, and that is what I felt was his impetus to distance himself from his daughter, Lisa. We also hear about his net worth at this time, so he wasn’t trying to be a deadbeat dad, he just wanted the whole thing to go away since he felt the leak of the out-of-wedlock child had cost him the Time Magazine cover. Watching his fractured relationships with his colleagues was a revelation to me since I had no idea how tumultuous his first stint at Apple was and how it was filled with failure.  
 

I enjoyed watching how his stubbornness to sell end to end products, cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars in computers and peripherals sales. It was surprising to see how much Apple’s market shares plummeted and how that opened the door for Microsoft to dominate the personal computer space. I had never heard of the Apple Newton, probably because at the time, I didn’t need a PDA, so that was cool to learn about and how it is used for comic relief.

Since I am picking up this review five months from when I started, I don't remember the things I didn't like about it. besides the ending being very jarring. The end comes out of nowhere and suddenly the end credits begin. I remember feeling like there should have been one last scene or beat. 

Final Verdict....3/5....it was cool to get some insight into the life of Steve Jobs, a modern day genius that changed the world. The movie had style for a bio-pic, but I didn't find myself pumping my fists in the air for the underdog.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Con