Cinemazlowski 'Steve Jobs' an emotional portrait of a complex man

The TV ads for the new movie "Steve Jobs," about the legendary business mogul who founded Apple and gave the world the Macintosh and iMac computers in addition to iPods, iPads and smartphones, ask an intriguing question: "Can a great man also be a good man?" It's the kind of question Jesus asked frequently in offering His listeners parables such as the one about the Pharisee and the publican, and it's truly a question for each of us to ask ourselves.

 

Written by Aaron Sorkin, who won an Oscar for "The Social Network" screenplay, and directed by Danny Boyle, who scored a Best Director and Best Picture Oscar for "Slumdog Millionaire," "Steve Jobs" takes a unique stylistic approach with its portrait of a man who was beloved by millions worldwide, yet couldn't be a loving father to his first daughter for most of her childhood.

 

Rather than following him in a straight narrative line from his childhood to his death, it follows Jobs and how he handled the pressure on the three biggest days of his career: the launches of the Macintosh and iMac, and the unveiling of his newer company, Next, which he founded after being chased out of Apple. In each segment, he is dealing with backstage drama on two levels: corporate intrigues in which products are at risk of failure and business partners argue with him over receiving fair credit for their efforts, and personal intrigues involving his ex-girlfriend Chrisanne Brennan and their daughter, Lisa.

 

The corporate intrigues center on moments such as Jobs' insistence that the Macintosh computer be able to say "Hi" to a huge live audience of shareholders, even as the technology is failing him right up until the last minutes before its unveiling. There are also battles over whether his newer company, Next, will fail because he was more concerned with creating a perfectly measured cube casing for a computer that doesn't work properly, and whether he can make a comeback with his seemingly last-gasp launch of the IMac personal computer.

 

Boyle and Sorkin wring maximum suspense and drama out of these moments, aided greatly by the winning efforts of an ace cast including Michael Fassbender as Jobs, Kate Winslet as his top lieutnenant Joanna and especially Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder who spends years in frustration just trying to get Jobs to offer public thanks for the team that launched the company's first (and, for a long time, only) successful product, the Apple II computer.

 

Yet it's the personal side of the story that's even better, and which makes "Steve Jobs" a potential classic. For here we see Jobs as a fascinatingly flawed man, one who could inspire thousands of workers and hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide into embracing his visionary ideas, but who still often couldn't be a decent partner to the mother of his child or a father to that girl.

 

In fact, the movie makes much drama out of the fact that Jobs told Time magazine that Lisa wasn't his child, and even told the magazine that, based on his blood type alone, over 28 percent of American men could have been the father. Yet it's here, in showing a coldblooded and ruthless man start to melt over the years into having genuine affection for his child, that "Steve Jobs" becomes both magical and memorable.

 

There are quite a few of Jobs' former colleagues and family members who feel that the movie offers an unfair portrait of the man, and his wife (whom he married years after Lisa was born, and with whom he had three other children who seem to regard him as a good father) even actively interfered in the movie's casting by begging Christian Bale not to play the role of Jobs. His life is far too complex to analyze in-depth, but it's hard to believe any audience member won't be so entertained by this expertly made movie to really care.

 

"Steve Jobs" is rated R for its foul language, and there certainly about 50 F words, and at least 20 uses of God's name in vain including uses of "GD" scattered throughout the movie. Yet it doesn't feel exploitative in the context of its emotionally charged scenes, and certainly shouldn't pose a problem for most adult viewers.