When I walked out of the critic screening for Jobs (no it is not a movie about getting a job in this difficult economy) I was thinking that as a purely biographical film exercise and movie, this is probably one of the best ones of the year. Ashton Kutcher gives the performance of his career; he does an amazing job of embodying Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
I wasn’t going to mention The Social Network, but I must. The reason why that movie didn’t work for me is Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin clearly hated everyone involved in the creation of Facebook. Almost every character in that movie comes across as complete douchebags. No one is likable and it doesn’t give you anyone to root for.
Director Joshua Michael Stern goes in the opposite direction, he LOVES Jobs, has clearly drunk the Apple Kool-aid and has gone all in on the cult of Jobs. This movie becomes an extension of the Apple hype machine. From the moment that we are first introduced to Jobs, where he talks about inventing a whole new market segment with the launch of the first iPod, to Jobs being responsible for creating Atari’s Breakout game in a weekend, to other proclamations. You would think Steve Jobs invented “everything.”
Watching this film leaves the misimpression and myth that Apple created almost every “innovation” that we enjoy today, even though there were numerous MP3 players years before the iPod was released (I had Creative’s Zen MP3 player several years before the iPod was even announced), Apple just created an easy to use ecosystem via iTunes and made it smaller. Xerox’s mouse and operating system was an inspiration for both Jobs and Bill Gates. As a tech geek, seeing this one-sided “Apple is brilliant, everyone else sucks” thing was getting old, real fast.
The movie does a fantastic job of giving us a portrait of who Steve Jobs was, but it fails to do it with a critical eye. Even when we see Jobs raving out and firing employees, it is presented as though he was simply a visionary perfectionist and either you were with him or against him.
He even screwed over almost everyone who helped build the original Apple I and II. His attitude was “any engineer” could have done it, only “management” deserved Options. It was an interesting and surprising insight into how Steve’s mind works. Apple portrays itself as this creative, “avant-garde” company but at the end of the day Jobs seemed to believe Management is more important than the people doing the work.
Another funny moment occurred when Jobs talked a local computer parts dealer to buy the Apple I, the guy puts in an initial order and agrees to pay $5,000 for it, when Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) asks how much did he get, Jobs says $750 and gives Woz $350. I think little moments like this really speak to who Jobs was as a person without being explicit and how Apple’s business model was formed.
The movie does a good job of showing Jobs prickly personality in how he deals with people and the fact that he has no since of loyalty. Not only did he screw over the people who helped him build the first Apple computer, but he also abandoned his “close” friend, Daniel Kottke (Lukas Haas ) and his longtime girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan (Ahna O’Reilly). Jobs completely abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant. It amazes me that when these people are interviewed today, no one seems to hold a grudge. I know I would.
My only issue with this film is again the weirdly “fawning” nature of it and the way it makes every decision he made seem like it was ultimately the “correct” one. Jobs does not seem to be a likable guy, but he is undeniably charismatic and Kutcher plays him almost perfectly and even when he is being a jerk, you want to watch him and follow him into battle.
Despite its flaws, as a piece of filmmaking and biography this is one of the best of 2013.
Final Grade B+
FYI, there are two typos: “cool aid” and “Kushner”.
Looking forward to the film, despite its flaws!
thanks