"It's warm and inviting and it needs to say HELLO!"

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2015)

The above line, which is the character Steve Jobs' (Fassbender) explanation for why the Macintosh computer at the unveiling in 1984, is his reasoning, and it's the first time we see him in the movie and his super-demanding-behind-the-scenes self. He has to have the computer say "Hello" to the audience that will assemble and see his prized innovation (which he didn't all innovate by the way, but neither here nor there, at least to Jobs), and it has to break down how people have been shown computer systems in Hollywood movies. His marketing manager cum surrogate mother, Joanna Hoffman (Winslet) remarks, "The computer in 2001 said hello, too. It scared the s*** out of me." There's another moment, a key one in a big, meaty exchange (what else does Sorkin love doing more) between Jobs and Wozniak in the auditorium in front of everybody, where Wozniak mentions that his products are better than the man who made them. Jobs agrees. Who is this a-hole? Our hero? Sort of, I guess.
Aaron Sorkin once again gives us a guy who is a super-driven, I'll-do-it-MY-way-if-I-have-to self-professed genius, and perhaps it's hard to not think of Sorkin's script for The Social Network with his version of Mark Zuckerberg (whether he really is or not I leave up to you dear reader). I could make a very long blog post showing the differences, but I think it comes down to something more elemental: Social Network is about friendship, or what would-be friendship is and as it breaks down (or wasn't there to start), and Steve Jobs is about marriages. Jobs's marriage to Joanna Hoffman, Jobs' marriage to Steve Wozniak, Jobs' marriage to Sculley, and even his sort of marriage to Any Herzfeld. But what about the woman who birthed his daughter ("She's not my daughter", one of the major conflicts of the film), or being a father to his daughter? And like marriages - till death do us part sort of thing - the same arguments and same old BS gets pulled up over and over again, even as technology changes and people age and move on to other companies.
So we get three time frames here, which is clever until it becomes a little contrived. That sounds contradictory, but what I mean to say is that on the one hand, Sorkin and director Danny Boyle get to show something that a lot of biopics don't bother with when they go for the 'rise and fall' scenario - Jobs starts out at a point that is remarkable in 1984, about to launch the Macintosh computer, but with people all around him trying to get him to be... decent, to do the right things, to not keep doing s***y things (the Time magazine article, the Dylan lyrics signifying something, the mention for the Apple 2 people, the threat to Andy on the voice), and we see Steve interacting with everybody in the format that is what it is, a Backstage Melodrama. And yet we see the same arguments basically take place in 1988 and 1998. It IS the 'hard' parts of business/creative/personal "marriages". In short, this may or may not sound appealing.
I feel like I may need to see the movie again for certain little things; I'm still not fully sold that the ending (or at least the final five/ten minutes, his resolution with Sculley and Lisa) don't dip more than a bit into making this character sympathetic - and I don't mean that as a bad thing, but that it feels shallow in a certain way, as in 'we've spent all this time telling you this guy's a d***, many times over, but... maybe he's deep down a really good guy.' On the other hand, it may not be that clear, and as I think on the movie there's ambiguity to certain moments and scenes, and that's what sticks with me and makes me interested to see it again.
There's one little scene, where Jobs is talking to himself, softly, and repeating technical details on the iMac. Is he talking to himself to rehearse the lines - the actor as well as the "player of the Orchestra" as he puts it to Wozniak as what he *does*, which is still slightly vague by film's end aside from the aesthetic side - or is he genuinely concerned to get the tech stuff right, a nerd underneath the sleek exterior? Sorkin, I should mention again, loves gigantic, monumental confrontation scenes the way Ninja Turtles loves pizza; there are more than a few in this film, and a couple of them (Jobs and Sculley in 1988, Jobs and Wozniak in 1998) are the kind that become borderline too much to watch - the cutting back and forth in time is what makes it jarring in a good way, making the psychology and points of view distinct and interesting - but it's almost like Sorkin can't help himself, no restraint in the slightest. Nevertheless, Boyle and the producers got such a top shelf cast that even if this stuff was theatrical-grandstanding I'd be riveted. Fassbender, Winslet, Daniels, Waterston, and for sure Rogen (he's proved himself dramatically before, in Take This Waltz, and here he does it again) all pull off performances that make these words come alive and, really, human all around.
What I mean by that last thing is that, it's one thing to read Sorkin's words - he writes what he does, and you'll know it by know from Social Network or his TV shows - but what Fassbender does here is incredible. If there's sympathy that Jobs gets, it's not so much in the writing as it is through just him, finding that pulse beneath the cold 'genius'. And Winslet's Joanna as the 'conscience' is spectacular, and often because she's just the one trying to keep things moving/together. Jobs needs that - how else will he give any kind of 'face' ala the computer screen?