A good film, not a great one

Rating: 6/10 (9 December 2015)

After the not very successful Ashton Kutcher movie, this is Hollywood's newest take on late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The director is Oscar winner Danny Boyle, the script comes from Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin and the cast includes Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender and Oscar winner Kate Winslet apart from Michael Stuhlbarg, Jeff Daniels and Seth Rogen. So it should not come as a surprise to anybody that this one is considered one of the big players this awards season.
The movie runs for 2 hours roughly, but I must say that I liked the second half more than the first. This film needed quite a while to really get going. I must say that I found everything before 1998 not too interesting. And even afterward there were discrepancies, for example how Winslet's and Stuhlbarg's characters were all of a sudden so important in Jobs' daughter's life, something that came a bit out of nowhere for me. Jobs' professional struggles with Apple make for the major dramatic moments of the film while the complicated relationship with his daughter is included for the emotion. His illness is not referenced, neither is his involvement with Pixar.
Fassbender gave a good performance and deserves an Oscar nomination. I am not so sure about the win, because a lot from his performance is also attributed to the excellent makeup work. Rogen had one great scene (his final argument with Jobs) and was solid for the rest of the film. Same goes for Stuhlbarg. Winslet had lots of screen time, but apart from how different she looked compared to her other performances these days, she wasn't memorable and should not receive any awards attention.
All in all, this was a solid movie. Fassbender is probably the best thing about it. I frequently have difficulties with how sterile Sorkin's scripts seem and here as well I just could not really feel any of the emotion, apart from the final rooftop scene maybe. But even this one occasionally only felt included for the sake of it, not really as part of a convincing storyline. I may be a bit biased as I couldn't care less about Apple (never had one of their products) or Jobs, but I don't think this is what kept me from really loving this film. It's just too much by the books for my taste. Still, I recommend it, even if I don't think it's considerably better than Kutcher's film. And my favorite Boyle film is still "127 Hours".