Steve Jobs

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Sarah Snook, Adam Shapiro

Director: Danny Boyle

This account of the legendary computer tycoon is scathingly well written by Aaron Sorkin (who won an Oscar for The Social Network) and just as well, for the movie is practically all talk - and some of its rants and rows do go on a bit too long.

The film also struggles to explain how Jobs emerged as the genius who invented the iMac when most of its previous scenes seem to be suggesting that he was simply a human dynamo obsessed with the right packaging of his product, but one who relied on the technical expertise of others to produce it.

That said, Fassbender gives the performance of his career in the title role, portraying a man who was generally disliked - even hated - by many of those who laboured under the lash of his tongue. 'You've been alienating people for no reason,' his loyal aide-de-camp (Winslet) tells him. 'Soon there'll be no one left to say Hello to.'

In one rant on a man assigned to make the Macintosh say 'Hello' at an unveiling, Jobs tells him: 'You had three weeks; the world was created in a third of that time.' 'Some day,' remarks his cynical colleague Andy (Stuhlbarg), 'tell me how you did it.'

All of the acting in support of the star is good, especially Winslet and Rogen, as his former partner and long-time colleague, and Daniels as the CEO whom Jobs hires, but is later responsible for his leaving Apple in the late 1980s before returning as its saviour a decade later.

And kudos to the casting directors who found three girls who look remarkably alike to play Jobs' initially unacknowledged daughter at various stages of her life.

David Quinlan

USA 2015. UK Distributor: Universal. Technicolor.
122 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 10 Nov 2015