As beautifully constructed as an iPhone

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2016)

Steve Jobs is a terrific movie with terrific acting, especially from Michael Fassbender as the title character. It is thoroughly entertaining and engaging, Danny Boyle sets a quick pace that never lets down, and the dialogue is a perfect example of Aaron Sorkin's ear for witty, intense patter.
But what I found most striking about the movie was the ingenuity of its design, which managed to take a very loose collection of incidents and turn it into a coherent whole.
The movie has three acts, each one devoted to a single product launch by Jobs. People are running around trying to finalize things, Jobs is making demands, but all through preparation his friends and relatives are importuning him on this and that. The movie is best summed up by Job when he says "It's like five minutes before every launch everyone goes to the bar and then tells me what they really think of me."
The amazing thing is how nicely this works. Certain themes keep reappearing, so that even though these events are years apart they flow neatly into one another.
The ending is a neat trick, taking one of the film's threads and making it feel like that's what the movie was really all about, even though it was probably 20% of the movie, so that you have a satisfying ending.
There are some minor issues, such as Kate Winslet's accent, which inexplicably gets stronger as the years progress. Also, there is little interest here in historical accuracy, so you probably shouldn't take much of anything here as gospel. But as storytelling this is absolutely terrific.