‘Jobs’ is more about Apple than the man behind the Mac
Print Edition
A better title for this film might have been “The History of Apple Computers.”
“Jobs” aims to be the first biopic about tech giant Steve Jobs (Sony’s Aaron Sorkin project is next), but instead of offering insight into the man, it’s a chronology of Apple.
Ashton Kutcher plays Jobs convincingly enough. The “Two and a Half Men” star looks uncannily like the Apple co-founder, right down to the lumbering gait. But with a script by first-time screenwriter Matt Whitely that focuses more on corporate events, there’s no chance to look deeper into the man behind the Mac.
Directed by Joshua Michael Stern (“Swing Vote”), “Jobs” opens with the Apple chief introducing the first iPod in 2001.
Then it jumps back almost 30 years, when Jobs was a scruffy, barefoot, Reed College dropout on campus just for kicks. Jobs hallucinates in a field, travels to India, and suddenly it’s 1976, and he’s struggling in his job at Atari. Prone to outbursts and, apparently, body odor, he turns to his friend, Steve “Woz” Wozniak (Josh Gad), for help. Jobs discovers a computer prototype Woz built, and Apple Computers is born.
Gad as Wozniak heart of film
Gad is the heart of the film. Though his character, like the others, is weakly developed, Gad’s vulnerability as Wozniak makes him the most relatable. There’s also heart in the soundtrack, which includes songs by Cat Stevens, Joe Walsh and Bob Dylan.
Jobs, on the other hand, could be a real jerk. He dismisses his pregnant girlfriend (Ahna O’Reilly) and denies paternity of their daughter. He withholds stock benefits from founding members of his team. If a colleague doesn’t share his vision, he fires them. Loudly.
After he and Woz make a deal with investor Mike Markkula (Durmot Mulroney), the film spends a lot of time at Apple headquarters, where Jobs is a hot-tempered perfectionist.
This doesn’t sit well with board director Arthur Rock (a sadly bland J.K. Simmons), who unites with newly appointed CEO John Sculley (Matthew Modine) to ditch the company co-founder.
The decade the film skips — when an ousted Jobs created his software company NeXT, which he sold to Apple — could have illuminated it subject. How does such a driven man survive after being driven out?
And that’s the problem with “Jobs.” While it’s interesting to see the history of Apple and how Jobs’ singular determination was crucial to its success, the history of a company isn’t as compelling as the history of a person, especially one as complex, innovative and influential as Steve Jobs.
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