Jobs

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Lukas Haas, Matthew Modine, J.K. Simmons, Kevin Dunn, James Woods
Directed by: Joshua Michael Stern
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama
2013

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Follows Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) as he establishes Apple Computer and rises and falls as a tech genius.

Review:

Tim: Jobs is really a movie you can take two different ways. One, you could view this movie as a retelling of the rise and fall and rise again of Steve Jobs. This story tracks his time at school, the founding of Apple, getting fired, and rejoining the company. If you like this movie, you probably appreciate this straight retelling. Two, you could view this as a connect-the-dots film that tells what happened, but never really gets into why. If you take the second point-of-view, you probably didn't care for this movie. While I see the second side, I was slightly more on the first, and therefore, I enjoyed Jobs.

Jobs will never be the definitive movie about the Apple co-founder. The best biopics give us deep insight into a person, allowing us to see the world through their eyes and understand something on a deep level about who they were/are and how they tried to live their life. If you're looking for that, then this movie is certainly not for you. The best biopics focus on those aspects. This movie never even tries, and I understand why that would frustrate people. This movie barely scratches the surface of "why". At the end of the movie, you'll probably be just as unclear on what made Steve Jobs tick as you were before this film. That's disappointing, to be sure. However, for whatever reason, that's not what this film tried to achieve. Rather than shoot for the mountaintop and risk failing completely, this film took the easiest path, showing a straight retelling of what happened.

This point is the critical way to describe this movie. Jobs is focused almost exclusively on the what- what happened, what did Jobs do, what did he accomplish. And, looking at the film from that point of view, you could call this pretty successful, as it accomplishes exactly what it tried to. This film covers the major events of the rise and fall and rise of Steve Jobs. It tells you exactly what happened. You could find everything out by reading articles or books about Jobs, but there's something to be said about seeing this unfold on screen. I enjoyed that aspect of the film- I liked seeing what happened.

While the film deserves credit for its faithful retelling of what happened in Jobs' life, it also loses points for neglecting the why. With the "what", a film can be pretty good, which is what I would use to describe Jobs- it's a pretty good movie. While watching it, I was intrigued to find out what happened next. I wasn't bored, and when the film ended, I felt slightly disappointed, because I wanted to see what happened next. There's nothing wrong with that. However, the best movies transcend the what and focus on they why. Why was Steve Jobs the way he was? Why did he become a tech icon, while also being notoriously difficult to worth with? Why did he abandon his child, why did he rekindle that relationship later in life? There's so many questions we have about Jobs, and this film never really tries to answer any of them. The movie is a very surface level look at this man and his company. That's why this will never be considered a great movie, why it won't be long remembered. That's why it will eventually be eclipsed, when someone with great talent decides to make a movie about Jobs that Jobs himself would have appreciated.

The cast is pretty good. I thought Ashton Kutcher did a much better job of portraying Jobs than I would have expected. He'll never get nominated for an award for his performance, but he does look like the guy and gives a strong performance. At times, I forgot I was watching Kutcher as I really got into his character. Dermot Mulroney gave a good supporting performance- I really liked him in this film. Josh Gad was quite good as Steve Wozniak, although his character was under-served. I wish we got a deeper understanding of the Jobs-Wozniak relationship. I liked seeing J.K. Simmons, Matthew Modine, Kevin Dunn, and James Woods in supporting roles. Not all of these actors had big parts, but they all played their roles quite well. The only problem I have with the cast is the lack of a compelling, fleshed out female character. How could that happen?

Part of the reason the story works is because Steve Jobs led a pretty fascinating life. It was incredible to see the behind-the-scenes look at Apple, complete with the risks the company took, the successes, the failures, the great hires, and the bad hires that resulted in severe mismanagement. Apple is just a truly interesting company, and I loved seeing the politics portrayed on the screen. The story itself is fascinating, and this film benefited simply by telling that story. I really got into it and I was intrigued by what I was seeing on screen. Even though this film was probably a bit long at 128 minutes, it never felt like it was dragging on. I actually wish the movie had been longer.

You could easily make the case that Jobs was a terrible movie, and you might have a point. But, for me, I was interested and engaged in the story and I loved seeing what happened in the early days of Apple. This is certainly a flawed movie, and Steve Jobs deserves a better film. However, this is a movie I really enjoyed watching, and it entertained me from start to finish. It's flawed, but this is still a good movie and one that I would recommend.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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