STEVE JOBS

STEVE JOBS the film is almost completely contrived, with the majority of scenes a product mostly of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's imagination. But they are based on real characters and real events and because Danny Boyle's directing is mostly terrific, and most of the cast is superb, and Sorkin knows how to write dialogue and pacing for scripts, the movie works as engaging and satisfying drama.

Michael Fassbender totally holds your attention (or at least did mine) as a believable version of Steve Jobs, and Kate Winslet as his marketing exec does the same, though her supposed Polish accent slips and slides. Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Jobs's original partner, who was the technical genius of the duo, serves Sorkin's plot points well, though in scenes that mostly never happened, but he misses the childlike sweetness and almost naiveté of Woxniak as he comes across in TV appearances.

The real surprises for me, acting-wise, were two veterans of BOARDWALK EMPIRE, Katherine Waterston as the mother of Job's daughter Lisa, and Michael Stuhlberg (who I sometimes confuse with Joaquin Pheonix) as one of Jobs's main techie subordinates. If you want the real story, there are documentaries and biographies and various sources on the Internet, but if you want a really good movie and don't mind being manipulated by the talents of Sorkin and Boyle, STEVE JOBS was well worth watching.