Like Apple or not, Steve Jobs has been one of the most influential visionaries of the past hundred years. He brought Apple from the underdog company, to the luxury computer, to the mainstream smartphone. His impact has even shaped Star Wars, with The Force Awakens drawing some aesthetic inspiration from the design of Apple products. So it makes plenty of sense for there to be a biopic based off of him. However, what separates this movie (from a glance) when being compared to other Steve Jobs movies is how much later it came out after Jobs' passing. After seeing the quality and content of the film, this gap in time only makes sense.
Even before viewing this movie, one can have their concerns. The first being whether or not it will end up like 2013's Jobs, a pandering, reactionary movie made for theaters but with the quality of a made-for-TV film. Just by looking at the credits, one would be able to hear a resounding "no" in their heads. Steve Jobs is directed by Danny Boyle and written by dialogue master Aaron Sorkin. The impressive cast boasts the talents of Seth Rogen, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, and Michael Fassbender. But that's when another problem arrises: Michael Fassbender is playing Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs looks more like Ghandi than Michael Fassbender. How can you possibly be immersed in a movie about Steve Jobs when the guy playing Steve Jobs doesn't even look like Steve jobs?!? Turns out, Michael Fassbender is actually really good at this. You will watch this and believe he is Jobs. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, did the exact same thing. Even some of Fassbender's non-Jobs elements enhance the performance with his physical build making the character much more intimidating.
Speaking of things that aren't like real life, this whole movie isn't. Steve Wozniak praised the film, but also mentioned how unfactual the film was, and how it was more focused on being inspired by true events than sticking close to them. First, I will say this does not change the quality of the film. It is not a documentary. It can tell any story it wants. But even though it's not factual, Wozniak does praise the film for how true it stays to how the characters react, making the film more speculative fiction than entirely fiction. So, uh, brownie points for that.
Needless to say, the dialogue in the film is phenomenal. It's what the film relies almost entirely upon. It's comedic, it's fast, it's slow-burning, it's heartbreaking, it's infuriating, and it's calm. It does all of this whenever the film requires it. It also is a master class in hiding subtle character development. The movie doesn't take place throughout all of Job's life, but instead right before three separate Apple conferences, taking place over the span of 1984 until 1998. There are about one or two drastic changes in his character, but for the most part it's all small changes that add up in creating a new Steve Jobs, and Sorkin does it wonderfully. When a new third of the film starts, you can just tell that there's something different about him. This effect of course relies on the talents of Fassbender as well, which I cannot stress enough how good he is in this movie.
However, I haven't mentioned the rest of the cast yet. And they're good. Just pretty good. Seth Rogen is really good. Kate Winslet is really good. The child actors in the movie are really good. They're just really good, and being really good in this movie means "you're going to be outshined by Fassbender".
Of course this wouldn't be possible without the direction of Danny Boyle. It's almost as if Boyle and Sorkin were holding the hands of the cast along the way, making sure there would be no mediocre performance in the film. Boyle ties the film together with a pretty, digital bow by making sure everything matches the rest of the film. An example being that the first part of the movie was filmed on 16mm film, the second on 35mm, and the last completely digital. But in all of the film, the visuals are colorful, glossy, and shiny. This is not just a perfect pairing for the actual content, but with Daniel Pemberton's incredible soundtrack. It's not just symphonic to match the grandiose way Jobs wanted his products to feel, but digital too, because, uh, computers. He combines these two aspects perfectly to make an underrated gem of a score. Sometimes I'll listen this soundtrack while walking around, and even then, I'll find myself wondering about what is Jobs thinking about in the point of the film where the track I'm listening to plays.
The only part of the film I am not 100% in love with is the editing. There are two big decisions in the editing, which is when occasionally two characters will have a conversation, and the film would cut in between the current conversation and a past conversation they shared. This is quite good. I like this. The other big choice they make happens about twice in the film, where they would add a visual into frame that's not there, and it looks almost like a music video. In the context of the scene itself, it's not bad, but it's done so little in the film that when it actually does happen it's jarring, and takes me out of the film.
Steve Jobs (much like the man) is not perfect. But its flaws are minimal (unlike the man), and its achievements, while not revolutionary, are to be celebrated. Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs is an 8.5 out of 10.