Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad
Director: Joshua Michael Stern
Country: USA
Genre: Biography | Drama
Official Website: Here
Editor’s Notes: Jobs opens in wide release today, August 16th.
It is safe to say that Apple has a grip on most of our lives. Whether it be iPod, iPhone, Macbook or any of the numerous other Apple products, a great many members of society have Apple involved in some part of their day-to-day. Apple has not only changed the way we do everyday things, but the very way we think about them, infusing technology into the fabric of our lives. When Steve Jobs passed, the world lost its Apple visionary, figurehead and face of innovation, so the announcement of books and films chronicling his life only surprised the most ignorant. We will have to wait for box-office receipts to see if audiences care about seeing his life as much as the buzzing in their pockets. One thing is for sure, Jobs is far from meeting the high standards of its subject.
We will have to wait for box-office receipts to see if audiences care about seeing his life as much as the buzzing in their pockets. One thing is for sure, Jobs is far from meeting the high standards of its subject.
As much as Jobs is being touted as a chronicling of the life of Steve Jobs, it is only truly concerned with the genesis of Apple. The film begins with the Apple staff meeting that saw the reveal of the iPod before taking us back to a much younger man. At Reed College, Jobs has already dropped out of college and now busies himself by auditing numerous creative courses at the very school he is no longer enrolled. The rest of the film goes through the necessary beats, Apple’s initial success followed by years of turmoil that eventually saw Jobs reinvigorating the company like a phoenix from the ashes. It’s a biopic, and one that has kind of already been done (meanwhile Noah Wyle is still on TNT), so you pretty much know the story.
We should probably just get this out of the way up front. Yes, Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs. I know. Calm down. It’s going to be fine. There was plenty of disgust and confusion when Kutcher was announced. It looked like he got the part not for his acting prowess (although Dude, Where’s My Car? fans may beg to differ) but because he bears a passing resemblance to a young Jobs. But in all honesty, Kutcher does a fine job in the role. However, he never truly embodies the character and his performance always feels like he is just acting, relying too heavily on a series of signature hand gestures and a walk that he is never comfortable in. The chemistry between Kutcher and Josh Gad, as Steve Wozniak, is great and the two are able to communicate a friendship without it ever being explicit. While the two work well together, Gad continually outshines Kutcher, placing the proper weight and levity as the scene demands. The moment when Wozniak tells Jobs that he is leaving Apple is perhaps the best example of the two actors’ differences. Gad’s delivery is genuinely emotional, and you can see him fight the tears that refuse to hold back, while Kutcher stares on blankly with hopes of conjuring a lone tear that will never come.
When he isn’t expressing frustration over the lack of vision and ingenuity in his colleagues he is imparting them with great wisdom resplendent with clichés of the most annoying variety. The representation is shallow and as he is the center of the film, drapes the film with confusion.
All biopics face this struggle, to tell the true story or the flattering one. It has been readily documented that Steve Jobs was a perfectionist. Those that worked with him have stated that his interpersonal relations were far from the best and he wasn’t necessarily a guy you wanted to work for. He was endlessly demanding and has been called an egomaniac more than once. While at the same time he is responsible for great progress and has been shown to be an above average salesman. This is kind of par for the course when it comes to “visionaries” and “geniuses”, a mind so far reaching that it is annoyed by limitations. Jobs is unsure of which road it wants to take. As he is written, Steve Jobs has only two modes: angry, put-upon, asshole visionary and motivational poster. When he isn’t expressing frustration over the lack of vision and ingenuity in his colleagues he is imparting them with great wisdom resplendent with clichés of the most annoying variety. The representation is shallow and as he is the center of the film, drapes the film with confusion. The desired message and what is actually conveyed are in disagreement. The hope is to have you marveling at the wonder of Steve Jobs, filled with amazement at all he accomplished, but the uneven screenplay just leaves you with the image of Steve Jobs the complete dick, a man with little care for those that supported him.
History is something that is played with rather than presented. We make great jumps in time, potentially because someone thought that the years that passed were not all that important. We miss whole chunks of Jobs’ life, most glaringly absent is his involvement in Pixar; it is all Apple, all the time. By the time the film hits its final moments it doesn’t exactly end so much as it just stops. There is no conclusion, rather a running out of things to say. Jobs ultimately feels incomplete. Kutcher does a serviceable job as the titular lead, as does most of the supporting cast. The direction is pedestrian, relying on some sort of Biopics for Dummies, with on-the-nose music cues and no rush to tell more than the required amount. Jobs is a film about a man of innovation who strove for what was coming next, always looking to the future. His goal was to give people the exact thing they didn’t even know they wanted, something advanced and awe-inspiring. It is somewhat ironic that Jobs ends up feeling elementary and unremarkable.
[notification type=”star”]55/100 ~ MEDIOCRE. Jobs is a film about a man of innovation who strove for what was coming next, always looking to the future. His goal was to give people the exact thing they didn’t even know they wanted, something advanced and awe-inspiring. It is somewhat ironic that Jobs ends up feeling elementary and unremarkable.[/notification]
