Steve Jobs Review

Steve Jobs

Are you an Apple or a PC?

This was one of those burning questions of the naughties, as two personal computing behemoths went head to head for the digital souls of a generation.

Personally, I’ve always subscribed to the Charlie Brooker theory on Apple; great products, shame about the owners.

Naturally, I should be right at home with a bunch of preening, pretentious, style over substance types who like to call themselves ‘creatives’, even though they work in advertising and do freelance work for the ministry of defence.

Or something.

But in practice, I just can’t stomach those Steve jobs worshiping bastards – which piss poor segue leads me onto Aaron Sorkin’s excellent new film, Steve Jobs.

The year is 1980 something, and Jobs is backstage at Apple’s latest product launch event, whining about how he didn’t make Time magazine’s man of the year.

This turns out to be important, if only to highlight the delusions of granduer Jobs is afflicted by – something his sycophantic Apple loving zealots have in common with him.

Anyway, Jobs is freaking out on the biggest day of his working life, when the so called mother of his child presents herself demanding more money to keep her in the life she’d like to become accustomed to.

Jobs denies that he’s even the father of the child, even though DNA testing has proved otherwise, and this the recurring theme of Steve Jobs the film.

If you’re after a biopic of Jobs’ life, then this isn’t the film you’re looking for. Instead, the Steve Jobs film provides an insight into the tangled personal life of Apple’s design guru on the eve of three new product launches.

Now that doesn’t necessarily sound like a great idea for a film, until you add Sorkin, director Danny Boyle and a polo-necked Michael Fassbender to the equation.

Throw in a supporting cast that includes Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels and Seth Rogen amongst others, and what you get is a gripping three act film about the human complexities of the man behind Apple’s inexorable rise to the top of the modern computing world.

Steve Jobs

As ever with these kind of films, it’s hard to know where the line between truth and fiction lies with Steve Jobs.

As someone who doesn’t hold Jobs up as some sort of new age deity, I’ll happily believe all the stories about the guy’s many human flaws.

From the outside looking in, I think that would make his achievements all the more remarkable, even though the real geniuses behind Apple were computer designers like the Rogen shaped Steve Wozniak.

In fact, it seems as though Steve Jobs was a great manager, but not always a great man.

And what’s wrong with that?

To be as successful as Jobs undoubtedly was, you have to make some sacrifices.

That feels pretty real to me, and if an Apple hating luddite like myself can see Steve Jobs as a real human being, then i’d say the film of the same name has done a pretty good job of shining a light on this 21st century computing pioneer.

Jonathan Campbell

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November 2015
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