Steve Jobs

There have been several movies about the life and work of Steve Jobs but this was the big-budget version starring Fassbender based in Isaacson's book. As with any biopic, particularly when many of the key players are still alive, it was going to be controversial. The biggest endorsement came from Woz, who said that while the details of the movie were dramatised it had the right feel of what happened.
The movie takes place in three acts. Each act is a key point in the career of Jobs and the development of Apple taking place in the run-up to a product launch. The important characters visit him to support him, have it out with him, or make peace. Clearly not all this happened in the hours preceding each product launch, but the consolidation of a whole era into a single epoch allows the relationships between the characters to be developed without having to fit in the whole history of Apple. That being said, references are made to stories that bring more depth to the story if you know about them in advance.
Other movies have told more of the Jobs story, had more detail, been more accurate, but the simplicity is the strength of this movie, allowing us to see more of the characters involved. Normally I dislike historical inaccuracy in movies, but in this case it is clearly not trying to describe precise events that I think it gets away with it. Also with the number of Jobs movies, documentaries and books out there I don’t think there’s much risk of rewriting history.
Possibly it’s one for the fans, people who lived through much of story of early computing when Apple started and nearly ended before becoming the giant it is today, but it was a compelling watch.

4/5 - Very Good