Movie Review: Jobs

The man who changed the world ... through technology

Movie: Jobs

Rated: PG

Rating 8/10

Jobs opens with technology guru Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) unveiling the iPod at a 2001 meeting with his adoring staff, describing the invention as “putting 1000 songs in your pocket”.

We then step back to the 1970s, to Jobs’ counter-cultural university dropout days, and are treated to the highlights and lowlights of the next three decades as Jobs builds, loses and regains the Apple empire.

The film ends where it started, at the iPod launch. It’s “a tool for the heart” and “insanely cool”, Jobs says (his staff applauding, knowing he’s changed the world. Again.)

His choice of words takes on a new resonance after gaining an insight into Jobs — the creative genius, visionary, entrepreneur, colleague, employer and human.

Jobs was more than a little crazy. But in his world, that’s a compliment.

His now-famous Here’s To The Crazy Ones spiel ends: “and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do”.

As for a “tool for the heart”, some would argue Jobs needed something like that above all else.

While the audience cannot help be in awe of Jobs’ tenacity and unswerving commitment to innovation, his selfishness and overwhelming ambition seemingly overtook human decency and it is painful to watch him as he treat colleagues and friends without compassion.

Scriptwriter Matt Whitely and director Joshua Michael Stern are not shy about portraying Jobs’ darker side and it does come as a bit of a shock if you believed all the positive eulogising in the wake of his untimely death two years ago.

Some critics have expressed disappointment that more screen time was not given to the actual technology which made Apple Computers revolutionary.

But I think for the general viewer, they got the balance right.

I loved my Mac Classic and Mac Book as much as the next font nerd but motherboards make my eyes glaze over.

Kutcher cleverly imitates Jobs’ tiptoe walk, enigmatic smile, speech patterns and flowing hand gestures, and from flashes of inspiration to righteous indignation, rage and eventually love and a little humility, Kutcher effortlessly conveys a spectrum of emotional states which keep the viewer engaged.

As good as he is, Kutcher is eclipsed by Josh Gad’s portrayal of nerdy Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The scene in which Wozniak explains why he helped found the company and why he was leaving is poignant.

jOBS is an enjoyable film which covers an exciting period in the development of technology and popular culture.

It’s not perfect but it’s fine.

Jobs, the design perfectionist, would have had a problem with that — as he reminded one of his staff before firing him, saying something “is fine” is “the worst thing you can say”.

But those of us who are neither troubled geniuses and/or sociopaths can appreciate fine.