Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle, 2015)
The 6 p.m. centerpiece showing of Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs (2015) at the New York Film Festival started with the entire audience singing the birthday song. It just so happened to be Kate Winslet’s birthday (Winslet plays Joanna Hoffman, a marketing exec at Apple and Jobs’s confidant). After the cast filtered onto the stage, the director led the actors and audience in a spirited, off-key rendition of the well-known lyrics. The surprising intimacy of these few minutes—encapsulated in the moment when the audience called Winslet by her first name, as though we were all old friends—was a component notably absent from the film itself.
Steve Jobs is all about sharp edges. The film itself centers around three premieres: the Apple Macintosh’s unveiling in 1984, the launch of the NeXT Computer in 1988, and, finally, 1998’s release of the iMac. Aaron Sorkin’s script focuses on the behind-the-scenes action rather than the onstage revelations. These three snapshots chronicle Jobs’s (Michael Fassbender) relationships with key players in his personal life and the tech world, namely Jobs’s ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), his hotly contested love child Lisa (played at different ages by Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine), Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), and Apple’s CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels). Over the years, Jobs climbs his way to the top of the tech empire, often making underhanded or coldhearted decisions in order to further his career. At times, it seems he has more in common with the computers he markets than the people he orchestrates.
In each of the film’s three sections, after the drama backstage wraps up, Jobs steps on stage to present the new product. The film immediately cuts to the next premiere, refusing to release the tension even to celebrate Jobs’s success. The film crescendos only to crescendo again, more interested in how Jobs works than the work he produces. We never get to hear the resolving note. While utterly engaging in the heat of the viewing, such a structure rings oddly hollow after the film’s credits roll. Nonetheless, while still in the theater the spectator relishes Jobs’s ruthless ambition, which is mirrored in the film’s cool efficiency of both content and form. The icy suspense delights as well as shocks the spectator. What will Jobs do next? After the revelation at the end of the film’s second section, anything seems possible.
But the film is not content to render Jobs as a cold, cutthroat businessman. In the end, Steve Jobs endeavors to shave off some of the lead protagonist’s sharp edges. The final few scenes of the film attempt to manufacture intimacy, and instead come off as hokey. Relationships that have been stiff and professional suddenly become loving and personal. Wrongs are righted at the very last opportunity. When the film slows down—both literally and figuratively—to show the evolution of the eponymous tech maven, it loses its wit as well as its breakneck speed. The light that suffuses the film’s final image cannot sufficiently brighten the slick darkness in Boyle’s creation. But why should it even try? Had the film stuck to the fast-paced tale of subtle subterfuge (or, in other words, had it retained its sharpness), I would not crave the personal touch I experienced before the opening credits began. The hollow gesture toward shiny resolution left me wishing for something more sincere as the film drew to a close.
Author Biography
Dominique Silverman is a senior English-Film Studies major and gender studies minor at Hendrix College. In addition to film she enjoys podcasts, cross stitching, and working towards dismantling patriarchal structures.
Mentor Biography
Kristi McKim is an Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Hendrix College, where she was awarded the Charles S. and Lucile Esmon Shivley Odyssey Professorship, honored as the 2014-15 United Methodist Exemplary Professor, and nominated for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year Award. Her publications include the books Love in the Time of Cinema (2011) and Cinema as Weather: Stylistic Screens and Atmospheric Change (2013), in addition to pieces in Camera Obscura, Studies in French Cinema, Senses of Cinema, Film International, The Cine-Files, and Film-Philosophy.
Department Overview
Hendrix College offers a major in English with an emphasis in Film Studies and a minor in Film Studies. This growing program within an intimate and rigorous liberal arts college environment includes a variety of courses in the history and theory of film and media, alongside co-curricular experiences (such as this trip to the New York Film Festival) generously made possible through the Hendrix-Odyssey Program. Extracurricular film-related groups include Hendrix Film Society and Hendrix Filmmakers.
Film Details
Steve Jobs (2015)
USA
Director Danny Boyle
Runtime 122 minutes
Follow this link to read the introduction to this set of reviews: https://www.filmmattersmagazine.com/2016/05/21/2015-new-york-film-festival-introduction/
