A solid film, with an interesting story, a very strong performance from Michael Fassbender and a very weak one from Kate Winslet.
Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, STEVE JOBS takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.
Fassbender is amazing in this role – he plays the insanity, the genius and the angered really well. His scenes with Seth Rogen and Jeff Daniels are some of the best in the film and these actors’ chemistry is superb. Kate Winslet’s character is supposed to be from Europe, but her accent certainly didn’t reflect that initially. In the 1984 segment it sounded Brooklyn, in the 1989 segment it sounded European and in the final 1998 segment she had no accent. Yet, somehow in this unusual and unpredictable world she won a Golden Globe and has received an Oscar nomination. I really don’t understand the award season!!
The screenplay is good and Sorkin has written interesting dialogue in three unique settings (backstage of Apple product launches). However, you never see an actual launch, but there’s always this crescendo – from a story point, a lighting point and music point. This falls flat three times and I felt that we really needed to see at least a portion of the 1998 product launch to finish the film appropriately.
The music was superb and it underplayed the film’s intensity well. The cinematography was conventional, but worked well in the setting. Director, Danny Boyle has achieved marvel with Fassbender and reached a new low with Winslet, he could’ve easily spotted the accent issue and worked with her on it.
Overall it is a solid film that could’ve easily been made brilliantly with a few small changes.
3.5 Stars
Review by Benjamin Maio Mackay
Screening courtesy of Universal Entertainment