Film: Jobs

Director: Joshua Michael Stern
Genre: Drama/Biopic
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Island Cinema
Grade: C-

Jobs is a strange beast, in part because it can't decide what it wants to be. Does it love Steve Jobs or hate him? Is he a visionary or a monomaniac? In trying to show him as both, without a clear perspective on why its doing so, the film seems strangely flat, lifeless, and unsure of itself. It's a film that does a lot of things ok, but nothing well. And though it could have been a lot worse, you also get the feeling there's a much more focused and interesting story to tell.

The good news: Ashton Kutcher is better than expected. He has clearly spent a lot of time working on mimicking Steve Jobs' physicality, to the point that it's distracting at times. When he focuses it down to the small smile/grimace it works. When he takes it to the big awkward walk, it draws attention to itself. I went in to the film thinking, "Oh man, Kutcher doesn't have the chops for this." I walked out thinking, "Hey, Kutcher does a pretty solid Steve Jobs impression." But never did I lose myself in the performance, or think "Jobs is a fascinating character" instead of  "Kutcher doing Jobs is interesting to watch." I don't think he has the strength yet as an actor to get to the meat of the character, but he does try, and maybe it will open him up to more serious opportunities. 

In other news, however, the film's lack of a handle on Jobs comes through in myriad ways. It feels too long even while huge and pertinent sections of Jobs' life are glossed over. How, for example, does he repair his relationship with his daughter? Who is his wife? Going back further, how does he actually get interested in computers in the first place, since the film sets him up in college as being more interested in art and spiritualism than in tech, but then cut to the next scene and he's working at Atari. It seems like there's an interesting journey happening in the ten or so years the film skips over, and yet the film never bothers to do anything with it. It's so excited to show Jobs the genius (how many pictures of Einstein can we place him under?) and Jobs the asshole that it never quite figures out how to show Jobs the human. He was a prophet, it seems to say, showing him almost at times as a religious figure, and thus unappreciated. His vision, the film seems to suggest, was always right, and if a few people got run over to get there, that's the price of genius. It doesn't make a compelling argument for why that is. It's not that I want it to "solve" another human--that's a tall order--but I want it to do a better job of having a point of view regarding why that is the case. It's ok to be ambiguous, but only if that ambiguity engages the audience to deeper thought on their own; not if that ambiguity comes from not being sure what you want to say.

In the end, the film is like Kutcher's performance and the film's interpretation of Jobs: lukewarm. It wants greatness, but doesn't really know how to get there.

Maybe Aaron Sorkin will do it better..

Alternate Film Title: "iEgo"