Looks at the character of the man rather than a biopic

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2016)

When I heard about this movie being filmed around town, I wondered how on earth another pic about Jobs got the green light. I mean, wasn't there just a Jobs film featuring Ashton Kutcher. Yuu got that film on top of others like "The man in the machine", "Lost Interview" etc. and way before that, my person favorite "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Frankly, was there anything more to say about this man?
I almost passed up this film but I am so glad that I didn't. This film explores the character of Jobs. It's not about chronological events and achievements of this man and it doesn't even pretend to be. It's a three act play that fictionalizes three events that are sort of turning points in Jobs career. This movie is what is so fantastic about fiction over other film forms. When done well in its most artistic form, fiction is able to capture the emotional truths rather than objective truths contained in a series of events. Leave the objective truths to its appropriate artisans--the territory of documentaries and docudramas. Fiction, when done well, can get to the root and this film does just that. This film is fiction at its best--great writing, great performances, great staging that keeps a largely verbal film feeling tense and driven throughout.
At the most superficial viewing, the film seems to tangle with the bizarre biographical element of this man's life--his relationship with his daughter. Even if you are only slightly familiar with the story of Jobs, this aspect of the story just doesn't make sense. Its weird and it betrays an aspect of the character of this man that too many biographers/reporters/filmmakers seemed rather eager to gloss over whenever you read or watch anything about this man.
This film is not interested in glossing over anything--the use of recurring characters carried throughout this film is a great vehicle that shows what it's like to have tangled with a person like Jobs, who by the end of the film you cannot come away with anything other than the impression that this man was basically a highly sociopathic/ narcissistic person. There are repeated references by Jobs and by others as him being a god...The mixture of love and hate the people around him feel. The loyalty to the vision that some misplace into loyalty to the man and how that man uses that loyalty to paint these close friends and colleagues again and again into ethical corners and repeated states of cognitive dissonance. Having the same characters recur, you see the damage wrought in in their lives by a relationship with such a person is a life long experience. Whether its being erased from the history of your work like Woz or like Scully, who years later refers to still receiving death threats for being the man who dared to 'fire Jobs'.
Whether these type of humans like Jobs are made by circumstance or born, the film alludes to both and neither and in the end shows that it doesn't really matter. If you are caught inside the 'reality bending zone' that surrounds them, as so aptly described by Winslet's character Joanna Hoffman, its a roller-coaster and the fall out is the same.
This movie captures the emotional damage, it shows the groupies, sycophants and enablers that surround them. It shows the opportunism and manipulation wielded by such a person. It shows how in the end these type of people are usually their own worst enemy.
One of my favorite moments in the film--Woz blasts Jobs backstage with the 'what do you do' attack before the launch of Next and says--"That's what men do"...and minutes later in the film Jobs goes on in a rant to Scully and uses the exact same words used by Woz--"Because that's what men do". Classic behavior of a narcissistic person--appropriation. A pattern of behavior that is the entire reason the naysayers dislike Jobs.
Its no surprise that those who worked with Jobs claim the movie shows someone they didn't know or recognize. Such people never see behind the mask of these type of humans. Valuable sources of supply never see behind the mask. The mask only slips in the presence of the fodder--the 'pawns' on the chessboard--underlings, waiters, etc. who will never be heard and if heard, never believed. And the movie also shows the other group who glimpse behind the mask-- those who were emotionally close and will never be believed because they will be categorized as having an ax to grind.
This movie is worth the time and attention demanded by such a dialogue intense film. Its worth watching more than once actually. To me this movie is bigger than Jobs, the flawed computer marketing genius. It deserves attention because there is a serious problem in this country with lifting these type of people to such heights of reverence in society when in actuality they are the great destroyers of what most people pretend to really value and these people use those values against you to serve their own selfish needs. As the screenwriter Sorkin pointed out..."If you've got a factory full of children in China assembling phones for 17 cents an hour, you've got a lot of nerve calling someone else opportunistic".