This is no biopic, but something far better

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2016)

In some ways Steve Jobs (written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle) is an odd film. There's nothing at all wrong with it at all, and a great deal that is right. But Apple fanboys and Mac nerds drooling for a big fat biopic will be very disappointed.
Yes, you get a few biographical details, although very little that wasn't known, but this is a different animal entirely and most certainly not the kind of 'wasn't he just a fabulous genius' hagiography so many will have hoped for. (On that score, in fact, I'm puzzled that there have so far been so few calls from the 'Mac community' to have Jobs sanctified: in many eyes he already is St Steve, and all the Vatican would be doing would simply be to confirm the fact.)
On the other hand the film produced by Sorkin and Boyle is odd in that it need not have been about Jobs at all: in essence their film is a study of a single-minded obsessive, his need for control and his relationship with his illegitimate daughter, and that obsessive could pretty much have been anyone, not least an utterly fictional character. From what we think we know about Jobs, he would seem to fit the bill, but he wasn't at all a necessary part of the film.
Even to call it a film is debatable: essentially Sorkin and Boyle's Steve Jobs is a three-act play and would work well on stage in the hands of a talented theatre director (and quite possibly will at some point). It is also something of an ensemble piece, the ensemble being the very excellent Michael Fassbinder and the equally excellent Kate Winslet (ironically both British), with great support from Seth Rogen (in a serious role, unusually for him, but one he carries off well), Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg and Katherine Waterson as the needy, resentful discarded girlfriend.
As I say, it would work equally well on stage, especially as the film is dialogue driven. What is particularly impressive is that the themes of Jobs difficulties coming to terms with his adoption as a baby and consequent need for total control, his fractured relationship with his daughter, his complicated relationship with the man who became the CEO of Apple and something of a father figure and the quirk that a man at times unbearably unpleasant inspired something close to love in so many who worked with him are treated with a delicacy sadly rare in a Hollywood film.
My one complaint on that score is the schmaltzy scene right at the end of the film, though I understand that an element of pure schmaltz is pretty much de rigeur in all American-made films. It's what the public craves. Well, this viewer doesn't and could have done without it. But I'm glad to say coming at the end of the film and lasting but a few seconds it did nothing to spoil a very good film indeed. See it if you have the chance, but bear in mind my warning that it might be the very opposite of what you expect.