Steve Jobs

Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Danny Boyle. Universal: 2015.

The closest I came to meeting Steve Jobs was in the late 2000s, shortly after the birth of the iPhone. I was attending Foo Camp, a California mustering of digital demigods. Jeff Bezos of Amazon was a regular; the year before, Google co-founder Larry Page had turned up in his helicopter. Everyone but me took such things in their stride. That year, however, there was something different in the air: a rumour had spread that Steve Jobs himself might join us. He never showed up, but such was his unique status that even his absence generated more excitement than the presence of other tech giants.

Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) confronts his daughter Lisa (Perla Haney-Jardine) in Steve Jobs. Credit: François Duhamel

Blessed as he was with formidable taste and rock-star showmanship, Jobs was always going to stand out from the crowd of awkward nerds (like me) who populate much of the technology landscape. Add to this his death at the height of his powers, and we have all the ingredients of a legend. This is not undeserved. Many technologists talk of changing the world; Jobs actually did so. More than anyone else, he broke down the barriers between technology and humanity, helping to turn computers into consumer products. Then, with the iPhone, he pulled off the reverse, turning an established consumer product into a computer.

How best to understand such a life? Jobs's answer was to invite high-flying writer and former media executive Walter Isaacson to pen his biography — a superb account published within days of Jobs's death. Steve Jobs (Simon and Schuster, 2011) is likely to remain the closest we will ever get to a definitive account.

The film version of Isaacson's blockbuster is a highly competent creation — as you would expect from writer Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, The West Wing) and director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting). The dialogue zips along at 100 beats per minute; the acting (especially by Michael Fassbender in the title role) is at times outstanding; and the direction is as slick as that of any other Hollywood offering. Yet many people will watch this film to better understand its subject — and by that measure, it falls short.

The plot hinges on Jobs's relationship with his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and plays on the contrast between his lavishing of obsessive attention on his latest electronic brainchild and his ignoring, or disowning, of his flesh and blood. It does this by going backstage at three seminal product launches: those of the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT Computer in 1988 and the iMac in 1998. This convenient three-act structure, which catches Jobs at three key moments in his life, also serves as a metaphor for the contrast between his suave public persona and his chaotic life.

This leaves a lot out. And therein lies the main weakness of this film: there are umpteen other contradictions to explore in Jobs. He was simultaneously a hippy and a control freak. He was an ascetic drawn to mysticism who built the world's preeminent consumer-products company. He was egocentric and impossible, inspiring both incredible feats of engineering (starting with the design of the Apple II by co-founder Steve Wozniak) and deep affection (despite frequently taking credit for the work of Wozniak and others).

Of course, covering all this ground in a two-hour film would be difficult. But the setting means that Jobs's close colleagues, relatives and key antagonists must all be at the launches with him, wanting to discuss their gripes in the same few minutes before he is due to step on stage. (In one amusing 'meta' moment, Fassbender actually notes precisely this.) This frequently stretches credibility too far.

The first two-thirds of the film thus struggle to engage — and will probably confuse people unfamiliar with the story and the cast of characters. It includes plenty of wonderfully quotable lines and aphorisms from the book, such as Jobs's burning desire to “put a dent in the universe”. But the rat-a-tat-tat form feels more like a collage than a coherent narrative. In short, it could have done with a dose of Jobsian minimalism. That said, the film redeems itself in the third act — rather like Jobs's career.

If you want an impressionistic, almost dreamlike montage of key moments in Jobs's life, see Steve Jobs. If you want to understand Jobs the man, you will be disappointed. But see the film anyway: it makes a great trailer for the book.