Steve Jobs feels less like a movie than a trio of one-act plays featuring the same characters strung together over a two decade period. Anchored around three conferences—one introducing the Macintosh in 1984, one introducing the disastrous "NeXT" computer in 1988, and his triumphant return to Apple in 1998 during which the company-saving iMac was introduced—the movie tracks Jobs' relationship not only with the company and technology writ large, but also with his daughter.
Steve Jobs is not a Danny Boyle Film so much as an Aaron Sorkin Delivery Device. If you like Sorkin-style patter—the rapid back-and-forths, the walking-and-talking, the need for a great man to realize that he isn't great unless he accepts the need to be loved—you'll like Steve Jobs. I do and did. Many others don't and won't. Most will simply ignore this, the second narrative feature about Jobs to hit big screens in 24 months or so (and the third film, total, if one includes the documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine).
With the exception of a few shots—such as the visual echo comparing the hordes of seated fans waiting for Jobs to take the stage to the zombie-like hordes in Apple's famous 1984-style ad—Boyle's direction here feels perfunctory. The British director's work has always had a delightfully frenetic quality and Steve Jobs is staid, if not exactly stationary (so much walking and talking).
This may not be the best time to ask, given the above paragraph, but is there a more underrated director than Danny Boyle? I sometimes wonder if he's the greatest working director who makes the fewest Greatest Working Director lists. The man's won an Oscar, has excelled in multiple genres, singlehandedly brought the zombie movie back into vogue, and has made a handful of truly great films (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire). Even his misses are interesting failures: Trance may not be the greatest heist flick ever made, but its twisty, nervy sensibility was admirable.
The performances are all excellent, from Fassbender's titular turn to Kate Winslet's long-suffering PR woman, Joanna Hoffman. I particularly enjoyed Michael Stuhlbarg's turn as Andy Hertzfeld, who plays the nerdy programmer with a sort of zen-like panic, absorbing Jobs' broadsides until he delivers the most devastating line in the film.
"I don't want people to dislike me. I'm indifferent to whether they dislike me," Jobs says to Hertzfeld. "Since it doesn't matter? I always have," Hertzfeld replies, matter-of-factly, without disrespect or malice or even contempt. It's just a statement of fact, one that clearly wounds the "indifferent" icon of computer design.