Steve Jobs

Michael Fassbender's towering performance as the enigmatic, titular character in "Steve Jobs" is just one of many reasons why this Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin creation is one of most significant films of 2015.

"Steve Jobs" is highly ambitious filmmaking that discards the standard biopic rules in favor of a deeper examination of the psychology and sociology of the iconoclast, as well as how the man and his work were so interrelated, often like they were one and the same. The film is loosely based on Walter Isaacson's sprawling Jobs biography. Loosely.

Full Sorkinite disclosure: I believe "The Social Network" to be one of the most important, Zeitgeisty films of this millennium, and I feel that "The Newsroom" is the most underrated TV show of the decade. I'm angry that it received such initial negative criticism from the blogosphere. Apparently, hyper-intelligent dialogue, insightful storytelling and rich characters just aren't enough for some.

So it's no surprise that I found "Steve Jobs" to be two hours of sheer filmic bliss that left me richly satisfied but craving more. It's such a cinematic cornucopia of complex riches that additional viewings beckon.

Sorkin's narrative structure is nothing short of Shakespearian (although in three acts, not five) and the film often feels like a stage play, which is fitting since most of Jobs' legendary moments happened on a stage, with him introducing life-altering technological advances.

In the film proper, the action is set backstage 30-40 minutes before three separate new product launches that would shape the history of the way people interact with computers and, ultimately, with each other. The segments are in real time for the audience, as well as the characters.

Six of Steve's inner circle peeps appear in all three segments, informing his life and work (or getting in the way of both, depending on how you look at it). They include his trusted work-wife and marketing exec, Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), his first partner and Apple 2 co-creator, Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Apple chief John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), geeky software designer Andy Herzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), his perpetually (and rightly) pissed-off ex-gal, Chrisann (Katherine Waterston) and his daughter Lisa (Makenzie Moss and, later, Perla Haney-Jardine).

The unrelentingly swift-paced drama opens with footage of Arthur C. Clarke presupposing that computers would be indispensable one day and would even have the capacity to speak to us.

Cut to Cupertino in 1984, where 29-year-old wunderkind Jobs is about to introduce the Macintosh computer to the world, after a thrilling Super Bowl commercial premiere, but is fretting when he is told that it will not be able to say "Hello." He continuously bullies Herzfeld that "it needs to be warm and playful," ergo it must say "Hello." Because it can.

Jobs is also furious he wasn't named Time magazine's Man of the Year. Instead, Time selected the "computer." Hoffman, the only person who can force him into a rethink about anything, tries to calm him. (Although important in his life, the Hoffman character is more of a composite of women who were close to Jobs).

Chrisann confronts Steve about the fact that she and her daughter are on welfare. Instead of agreeing to give her more money, the now-millionaire refuses and indirectly accuses her of sleeping with 28% of the male population, denying that Lisa is his daughter (the DNA test showed ONLY a 91.1% chance).

Jobs' desperate need for control, his growing paranoia and already rocky relationships with Woz and Sculley are established as he arrogantly hails the unveiling of the Macintosh as one of two significant moments of the 20th Century (the other being the Allied victory), and expects that one million will be sold in the first week. The reality: Only 35,000 units moved. Much of that is due to Jobs' obstinate insistence that the computer be incompatible with any computer other than the Mac.

Act One lays the groundwork for a challenging and fascinating character study.

The film leaps to 1988, as a fired-from-Apple Jobs is about to launch the NeXT computer at a ridiculously high retail price. But there is a manipulative method to Jobs' madness. There always is.

In Act Two, Jobs is getting to know his daughter better, still at odds with Chrisann and not taking Woz seriously. And in a terribly peculiar and singular moment, he wets his feet in his dressing room toilet as he prepares to take the stage. It's almost biblical.

This section delves into the curious relationship between Jobs and Sculley as Boyle brilliantly ping-pongs in time between two absorbing conversations, revealing what really went on in the boardroom and led to Jobs being fired. Sorkin's warp-speed banter here is at its best and most confounding. "Don't play stupid, you can't pull it off," Sculley sincerely shouts at Jobs.

Character relationships and dynamics are further developed in the center segment. The film is like a screenwriting (and playwriting) master class.

Act Three jumps a decade to 1998 and the launch of the iMac. Fassbinder has now transmogrified into Jobs. The essence of the man has been there throughout but now, with the glasses and black turtleneck, lanky frame and growly voice, he's become the man we all remember (or have seen on YouTube).

Sorkin's clever and keen words are never condescending, always intriguing, and Boyles spellbinding direction perfectly compliments the script. Key to the film's success is that the focus remain on Jobs the self-proclaimed "artist," who saw a way to change the way we lived and pursued that with all he was.

The film never bogs down with unnecessary, invented love scenes. Winslet and Fassbender have great chemistry, but the relationship mercifully remains professional. At one point Jobs wonders, "Why haven't we slept together?" Her simple but potent response: "Because I'm not in love with you."

And while we do get some insight into Jobs' upbringing, it never overwhelms. The way he deals with finding his biological father says so much because it's handled in such a subtle manner.

And watching him learn to care for his daughter speaks volumes to the regret he may have personally felt. When she asks him why he treated her and her mom so badly, his fitting response is, "I'm poorly made."

That's something that cannot be said about this film, which has across-the-board outstanding tech credits, beginning with Elliot Graham's masterful editing and Alwin Kuchler's gorgeous and mesmerizing camerawork. And Daniel Pemberton's score is exactly what it should be, leaving room for the viewer to decide what he/she wants to feel.

The cast is uniformly exceptional.

Stuhlbarg is gloriously befuddled as the forever loyal Hertzfeld and Daniels, who has been speaking Sorkinese for three years on HBO's "The Newsroom," brings great nuance to Sculley.

Winslet is one of the finest actresses working in film and, along with Cate Blanchett, the most intriguing of her generation. Here she is perfection, donning a Polish accent, as Steve's anchor, his moral compass and his conscience. But when she vehemently disagrees with him in Act Three, she isn't afraid to put it all on the line. Winset's Joanna sees the brilliance but she also knows the man underneath, often more than Jobs himself. When Winslet isn't onscreen you look forward to her return. Fortunately, it's usually fairly quick.

Fassbender's immersion is total. He embodies the heavily flawed maverick whose internal struggles only push him further towards notions of perfection and creating his own reality in the process -- one that doesn't see failure as an option (Jobs' "reality distortion field"). Fassbender's Jobs strives to be a better person, as long as it doesn't take away from his vision. He's a confident self-appointed (and fully realized) rebel who sees himself as an artist and wavers only when he realizes what he's missed, and then only slightly. There's an internal battle explored here by Boyle and Sorkin that Fassbender is reveling in. It's not good vs. evil. It's gray vs. multiple different shades of layered gray.

"I'm indifferent to people disliking me," Jobs insists. And we all know that, usually, when people feel the need to make proclamations, the opposite is often the case. This portrayal digs at the roots of his insecurities and controlling nature. Jobs would rather be perceived as a totalitarian than run the risk of allowing vulnerability to muddy his belief that, under the right guidance, we can all push our limitations and expand our capabilities.

The film asks fascinating questions about genius, the obvious one being whether somehow it's synonymous with egotism, steadfastness, fierce tenacity and never accepting "no" as an answer. "You can be decent and gifted at the same time," Woz growls. Jobs dismisses the remark.

Can you be nice and still accomplish what a man like Jobs accomplished? Would Jobs have even had the time to push forth his ideas (and the ideas he cultivated with others and/or "orchestrated") if he had been a good father and, gads, husband, had he not bullied others into doing better, better, best? All of this is food for thought in a feast of a film.