[projekktor id=’21341′]
In all the talk about about the impending collapse of the film industry, or the dangers of digital projectors, there is a far more powerful force threatening the artistic abilities of Hollywood’s biggest directors: the Aaron Sorkin screenplay. Such a power can render big name directors nearly invisible. Danny Boyle has now fallen to this unstoppable power, just as Bennett Miller had before him, and though David Fincher was able to wave his arms desperately beneath the crushing power of smart, snappy dialogue and score a best director Oscar nomination for The Social Network, that was before the all-powerful Sorkin had reached his final form.
Okay that’s a bit over-dramatic, but Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs certainly feels like Sorkin’s film. Danny Boyle provides a steady hand on the tiller, and Michael Fassbender turns in an Oscar-ready performance as the late Apple founder and technological visionary, but it’s the script that shines brightest. And that’s largely because Boyle has the good sense to keep things simple and let his all-star cast do the talking.
Instead of a more conventional biopic in which people may occasionally ride in cars or sit in chairs or be inarticulate children, Boyle structures his film in three parts, all set in grimy backstage dressing rooms just before the launch of major products in Jobs’ career, thus facilitating the amount of walking necessary for a Sorkin script to succeed. In each of these three parts, we are treated to visits from the most important figures in Jobs’ life, no-nonsense Apple marketing exec Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), Apple co-founder and friend Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Apple CEO/father figure John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), original Mac engineer Andy Hertzfeldt (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Jobs’ former girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) and their daughter Lisa (Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, Makenzie Moss). While each of the film’s three parts chronicles a major turning point in the career of Jobs, they also check in on one of the many storylines of his life. And the man had storylines. After all you don’t get to be a 7% shareholder in Disney by sitting on the couch eating peanuts (although I’m still holding out hope).
It’s a fascinating experience watching three brilliant artists in Aaron Sorkin, Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender bring such a complicated, divisive character to life. Though it’s inadvisable to put “visionary” on your resume (I speak from experience), it’s really the only word that sums Jobs up. The man was the smartest person in every room, yet didn’t actually build anything. “What do you do?” asks Wozniak in a moment of frustration, and it’s a valid question. Jobs worried endlessly about image and design. Like the clip of Arthur C. Clarke which opens the film, he foresaw a time when the computer would be a beautiful piece of design and not just a utilitarian machine to take apart and tinker with. Because the film is spread over 14 years we get to watch as he steers these predictions into reality, culminating with the still-pretty-nice-looking iMac, and the rather shoe-horned-in idea for the Ipod.
As hagiographic as that description sounds, the film is not an overly flattering portrait. Fassbender’s Jobs is a stubborn, condescending a-hole unable to admit his faults, even in the face of destroying his company or losing his daughter. The only person able to stand him in the film is Joanna, and it’s quite a rush watching Kate Winslet and Michael Fassbender go toe-to-toe. In a lot of Sorkin it often seems like the actors are barely keeping up with the dialogue, but when these two go back and forth, it’s like the dialogue is barely keeping up with them. Seth Rogen – taking a page from the Jonah Hill career playbook – delivers a fantastic supporting performance as Wozniak, though we have to wait until the end of the film to really see it. Michael Stuhlbarg and Jeff Daniels are their reliably excellent selves, while Katherine Waterston does a strong job with a relatively thankless part.
Behind all this, like quiet little elves, Boyle and production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas set us in each time and place. The style of Steve’s dress evolves from a white shirt and goofy bowtie, to a conservative black suit, to his signature turtleneck and jeans, just as the backstages evolve from a gaudy green basement, to an almost-equally putrid red-carpeted dressing room, to a sunlit, wood-panelled hall. Similarly Daniel Pemberton’s score transitions from melodic beeps to dramatic strings before settling on a more modern, synth heavy sound at the close. Editor Elliot Graham does equally quiet and efficient work, even as the film jumps into the occasional flashback it maintains a feeling of immediacy and tension.
And that’s saying something, because most of what this film gives us is nothing new. Unlike The Social Network (another film that Sorkin wrote), which in large part introduced people to tech genius Mark Zuckerberg, Jobs requires no such introduction. Most people will know something of the man going into this film, and they may leave feeling like they know even less. Nevertheless it’s an incredibly engaging experience watching a brain like Sorkin’s attempt to understand a brain like Jobs’. It’s tragic to think we will never get his opinion on the film, but then again, it would probably piss us off if we did.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
