We want to believe that our heroes are pure and do no wrong. We want to believe that they don’t bleed and that they are perfectly imperfect because they won’t let us down over and over again. We want to believe that because they give us the things that make us love them, that we will see them without flaw. But the truth is that a lot of our heroes can turn out to be scum if we don’t see what’s behind the mask. In the famous line from The Wizard of Oz, “Ignore the man behind the curtain,” because we want to believe in the mystery and be immerse in their auras, even if they turn out to be completely douchebags (I never use that word, but it was necessary here). Steve Jobs was a man that I believed was this genuine person for the longest time, because he was the man who introduced my young generation to the beauty of the personal computer in a way that hadn’t been seen before (my mother and I had an old computer that was strictly for Word Processing – I wrote a story called Peter the Rabbit; it’s on a Floppy Disk somewhere). The Macintosh changed the game, and Apple products became revolutionary. The iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone all transcended the game. Hell, I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro, so it just goes to show you the extension of Steve’s influence.

But what was really new to me about Steve Jobs, came after he died, and of course that’s when people like to air out what people were really like, whether they loved him or hated him, and it turns out that a lot of people did not like the man who put the smiles of joy onto billions of people’s faces over 30+ years. There are always two sides to the story, and where the Ashton Kutcher movie was about the rise of Steve Jobs while focusing on the product & business that is Apple, this refined and darkly cast portrayal of just who Steve was, seemed to be the movie that a lot of people were looking to see from the beginning. I like the fact that it was centered on the struggle of his personal relationships and highlighted significant failures that many people (let’s just say, myself) didn’t know about. The relationships with his business partner and his daughter, whom he didn’t have the need to claim for the longest time, really shaped him into inspiring new and innovative things for the world to be blessed with.

Michael Fassbender has quickly become a go-to actor for a variety of movies. How does one go from Magneto, to Plantation slave master, to Steve Jobs? He has the ability to do great things with his roles, and he did a great job with what was placed in front of him. It’s a movie that spans a period of 14 years that chronicles significant events while tying together the estranged relationships of people around him. You see them dwindle as he was one to alienate many and be paranoid enough to believe that everyone was out to get him. The greatest minds always have some of the darkest burdens to deal with. I’m sure there’s more to read about in the book of the same title as the movie. Kate Winslet also puts in a strong performance as the sanest person to handle Steve’s over-the-top obsessive and perfectionist ways. She’s the glue that does her best to hold him together, and she certainly played her part in delivering that. From all sides, the acting was great, even if the main purpose of the movie went off from time to time, because it was an open ending.

For its sole purpose to reveal a glimpse of the other side that many may not have known about Steve Jobs, it did its part, which also revealed little details about Apple products that were interesting nuggets. It’s a good movie, when it comes down to what really matters, and one that you’d benefit from watching if Steve Jobs meant anything to you at all. He’s one of the most brilliant minds to grace the Earth, so it is definitely worth peeking into his mind one time. This is my opinion, this is my review

That’s My Word & It STiXX