As masterfully played by Michael Fassbender in this weekend’s New York Film Festival centerpiece “Steve Jobs,” the late, iconic Apple founder is the ultimate Boss from Hell, an arrogant monster who goes out of his way to torment and embarrass even his most loyal and talented associates.
In this horror-movie-style biopic, Jobs even pushes away the 6-year-old daughter he initially refuses to acknowledge (despite a positive DNA test) — Jobs won’t even admit that he named his Lisa computer after her until well after he’s sure she might have inherited some of his genius.
Danny Boyle’s “Steve Jobs” makes “The Social Network” — another acidic portrayal of an arrogant tech genius with ice water instead of blood in his veins, also written by Aaron Sorkin, that ended up losing in Oscar’s major categories — look positively warm and fuzzy by comparison.
“Steve Jobs’’ currently ranks No. 2 (behind the journalism docudrama “Spotlight’’) among the Oscar pundits at Gold Derby, with Fassbender leading the Best Actor field over Leonardo DiCaprio in the as-yet-unseen “The Revenant.’’
But it’s not hard to imagine “Steve Jobs’’ following a similar awards trajectory as “The Social Network’’ — acclaim and prizes from critics and several Oscar nominations, including for Fassbender, Kate Winslet (playing Jobs’ marketing director and confidante, who is constantly trying to get him to do the right thing and suffering abuse for it), Sorkin’s script and possibly even Best Picture.
I don’t think it will land the really big awards on Oscar night, though. Audiences outside the two coasts (Universal has scrapped plans for a nationwide opening next Friday, sending it into just nine theaters to build buzz before going wide on Oct. 23) and Oscar voters (particularly the largest branch, the actors) may have trouble embracing a film so cold it should require a frostbite warning.
There will also be the inevitable, and probably justified, attacks on the accuracy of a film (based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography) that so relentlessly focuses on what the filmmakers consider the negative aspects of Jobs’ personality that it will be labeled a hit job.
That’s a bit of a surprise, given that director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire’’), who replaced “Social Network’’ director David Fincher during preproduction over reported budget issues, is much more of a humanist than Fincher.
But attempts to humanize Jobs in the film’s final segment — set before the wildly successful launch of the iMac after Jobs’ return to Apple in 1998 — feel half-hearted at best, unconvincing at worst. They don’t begin to take away the sour taste from the character’s unremitting bile-spewing in the two earlier segments that take place in 1984 (preceding the launch of the Macintosh, whose financial failure led to Jobs’ ouster from Apple) and 1988 (when Jobs launched the unsuccessful NeXT company, portrayed as little more than a sham designed to allow him to retake control of Apple).
The earlier segments are often even photographed like a horror movie, centering on Fassbender’s Jobs as an unfeeling monster who insults and betrays John Sculley, the Apple CEO he personally recruited; repeatedly blows off Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) as second-rate; threatens to publicly humiliate his chief engineer (Michael Stuhlbarg); and, worst of all, makes the mother (Katherine Waterston) of his daughter (whom he blames for him losing a Time magazine cover when her existence surfaces) grovel for more money when she and the child are both living on welfare.
“Steve Jobs’’ pays little attention to the subject’s genius. It is more interested in the filmmakers’ theory that he lacked empathy because his original adoptive parents rejected him — and because Jobs’ ego was so massive, he felt his sheer genius gave him the right to write checks in lieu of ever saying he was sorry.
Though the latter years of Jobs’ life (including his biggest triumphs) are not even mentioned, I came away with the feeling that the makers of “Steve Jobs’’ were practically implying Jobs’ early death at 56 was some kind of karmic payback. That’s really harsh, and I don’t think Oscar buyers are going to buy it.