Bicycles For Humanity...And Maximum Profit.

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2015)

Steven Jobs plays out like a four-act play with each act being a product launch. The associated side stories take precedence over actual launch events, they're just a clever device used to tell the story. This isn't a movie about science and technology, rather about a spectacularly flawed, brilliant, and undeniably narcissistic visionary. I purposely do not use the term genius which I think, too many documentaries regarding Jobs have posited.
The structure of the movie works because of the way it allows one to see inside the tumultuous battles of Jobs, with his employees, the Apple board, and his daughter (and her mother), They existed side by side, and, strangely, this enabled the viewer to be appalled for the most part while still, on occasion, feeling a strange empathy.
This isn't a feel good movie. It doesn't over celebrate even the fact Jobs lead Apple back from being one quarter from oblivion. It probably even barely shows how difficult Jobs was. It seems to accomplish a lot by not trying to do a lot in the final analysis. Fine performances from Kate Winslet (assistant Joanna Hoffman), Seth Rogen (Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak), Jeff Daniels (Apple CEO John Sculley), and three young actresses playing Job's daughter Lisa Brennan bring these integral people to a seldom seen place where they live and breathe. You can feel their anger and frustration with Jobs who they should have all turned away from, but couldn't. This is a very small window into the darkly inexplicable side of the man who brought us products we never knew we needed so much - until he showed us we did.