Steve Jobs

Movie Name: Steve Jobs

Year of Release: 2015

Director: Danny Boyle

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Perla Haney-Jardine, John Ortiz, Sarah Snook

Genre: Drama

Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 8

Synopsis & Review:

Fantastic and celebrated director Danny Boyle is back, following the awesome (and little seen) "Trance". "Steve Jobs" is a biopic and an adaptation of the book from Walter Isaacson (with a screenplay by celebrated screenwriter Aaron Sorkin). The film captures the life of Steve Jobs in three different time periods, that represented important events that catapulted Jobs' life and the life of his company Apple Computers in important directions. The film anchors itself on the preparations of what has become the iconic presentations of software that Apple is well known for: in each event we are introduced to the stress and pressure Steve placed on his team and everybody he interacted with. The film slowly also peels away the man behind the implacable facade, showing us his trouble relationship with the daughter he never wanted to assume, and the people who shaped Apple to be what they were.
Danny Boyle is an extremely intelligent director and film maker, always creating indelible film experiences from material that can be challenging (for instance "127 Hours"). Capturing the life of someone as iconic and well known as Steve Jobs could have proven a difficult task, but Danny Boyle manages to create a film that is dynamic, tense and engaging, interweaving the story with flashbacks, and other visual imagery that allows for a wordy screenplay to come to life. The film is successful in showcasing the personality of a leader that is demanding and insightful, while also probing deeper into who he was as an individual, with his flaws and shortcomings, creating someone more humane and relatable. Danny Boyle was also extremely successful in his casting, with Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels and Katherine Waterston creating really engaging and well rounded characters that bring the story and the film to life, with intelligence and a beating heart. As it happens with most biopics this film will probably receive criticism for not depicting Steve Jobs appropriately, but this is a work of fiction, not a documentary. It's another fantastic film for Danny Boyle's incredible filmography.