Jobs (2013)

It’s never a good sign when the best thing one can say about a movie is that it is never lives down to the horror of its first scene. In the case of the consistently frustrating new biopic Jobs, the first thing the audience witnesses is a presentation by the eponymous hero. Ashton Kutcher, terrifyingly gussied up to look like an older Steve Jobs, speaks to a group of people about a new invention he and his cohorts at Apple have come up with. He builds up a great deal of suspense, and then pulls the first iPod out of his pocket. The entire room erupts in applause, many of the audience members stand, the strings swell on the soundtrack, and the camera worships Kutcher’s Jobs like he is indeed the second coming. Immediately Joshua Michael Stern’s film sets itself up to be a blindly worshipful biopic that tells us little about its subject besides how awesome he was. The good news is that doesn’t turn out to be the case. The bad news is the film is still a shallow, pointless examination of a man who was far more fascinating than Stern’s film would lead one to believe.

After this introduction of the iPod, the film flashes back to Jobs’ time at Reed College, and he’s quickly established as an anti-establishment hippy who wants to make an impact but do it completely outside the usual system. When his friend Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) develops the foundation for a personal computer, the two of them start to run Apple Computers out of Jobs’ garage. The company continues to grow bigger and bigger, and Jobs’ ambitions follow suit. He is so engulfed in his work with the company that he becomes a horse with blinders, and he shows little regard for the well being of his friends, family, and potential daughter who he refuses to acknowledge.

A lot happens in Jobs as far as actual plot points are concerned, but in all that mess the movie ultimately accomplishes nothing. It is a film without a thesis statement, and its lone goal is to take audiences through a surface-level career summary of one of the most influential figures in modern technology. But who gives a crap? People can read a Wikipedia page, and in many ways that would give audiences a better idea of who Jobs actually was. The Jobs of this film is a jerk when he needs to be and a genius when he needs to be, but the two sides never really coalesce to form an interesting character. This is a determined man, certainly, but he’s not much else.

As such, it’s hard to blame Kutcher for his depiction of Jobs not really working. He has many of the tools necessary to do a fine job, though he admittedly seems to be trying too hard. (He could have done without the distracting posture nonsense.) The bigger problem is he didn’t have very much to work with, and in order for a performance like this to be good he also needs an interesting script and helpful direction. He gets neither of those things here. This Jobs only has a couple gears, and Kutcher plays them perfectly fine, but I can’t criticize him for not being great when the film barely gives him a chance to be great.

There’s also the matter of the film’s arc, which fits neatly into the usual biopic format but never really goes for thematic depth. Certain aspects of Jobs’ life and career are completely rushed or glazed over while others are lingered on for absurd amounts of time. He is shown working a great deal at Apple, but his personal life and other struggles are left on the sidelines except for when the script requires them to briefly come forward. One of the most potentially fascinating chapters of Jobs’ life—when he attempts to move on after being fired from Apple—is explained away in a montage, and Stern goes right ahead to the redemption. Jobs isn’t afraid of showing its protagonist’s ugly side, but it also is quick to tell the audience that this was a genius the world apparently needed, and it goes out of its way to keep any real breakthroughs at arm’s length. The whole thing just winds up feeling careless, hollow, and (worst of all) boring.

Grade: D+