A Thumbnail Sketch Of An Iconic Man For The Attention Deficit

Rating: 3/10 (27 December 2015)

Basically another of Aaron Sorkin's Walk and Talk bits extended into a feature film. It felt exhausting listening to Sorkin's Steve Jobs caricature argue with Wozniak, his ex-girl and Scully for two hours. What a bore, what a waste of time. The only thing you take away from this is what a jackass Jobs was, which is accurate only in the context of this film, which brings us back to the sad truth that if you're getting your history/biography from the movies, you might as well be watching Fox News.
The movies are famous for their distortions of life and never more so than in this narrow little bio-pic of Jobs. Certainly Jobs was not a nice man. No one who ascends to his level of success is. It's not possible, but he was not served well or accurately with this ugly portrayal of a nasty individual. The focus is on his fractious relationship with Wozniak, Scully, his ex-girlfriend and his daughter.
I read the excellent book by Walter Isaacson that this movie is purportedly based on and this film captures about 1/10 of 1% of it. The biggest problem is that despite Jobs's fame, his life is not the stuff that makes for a feature film. Maybe a movie of the week, but let's face it folks, there's no real drama here, which is why Sorkin concentrated on the negative aspects of Jobs's life, his relationship with the aforementioned people. It's a distortion and a damned disappointing one.
The film moves along at a brisk pace due to Sorkin's trademark nonstop Walk and Talk which he perfected in The West Wing, but at the end of the movie you're left feeling like you wasted your time. My recommendation; read the book.