2015 London Film Festival Coverage – Week 3
by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark
And as we come to the end of the film filled week-and-half extravaganza that is the 2015 BFI London Film Festival we have for you this week the (already) acclaimed Danny Boyle biopic Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender in the starring role. For the lovers of Apple and everything they encompass Boyle’s Oscar contender is sure to impress. With an all-star cast including Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman (right arm of Jobs), Seth Rogen as Steve Wosniak (Apple co-founder alongside Jobs) and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley, Jobs’ quasi father figure and CEO of the multi-billion dollar company, this film will both dispel and lay in place a number of myths surrounding the world famous tech brand.
Part of the festival’s multitude of Gala films (debuting at the festival) and headed by one of the most popular actors this year, fresh from his role as Macbeth in Justin Kurzel’s visually stunning drama-war epic of the same name.
Steve Jobs is equal parts fast paced and comedy filled, the biopic charting the meteoric fall, then rise, then fall rise and rise and rise of the enigmatic Apple co-founder, chairman and eventual CEO before, during and after the Apple takeover of the late 90s early 2000s.
More then this though, Steve Jobs (not to be confused with the not-so-hot 2013 version starring Ashton Kutcher, aptly named Jobs) is a much more personal portrait of the genius behind the grandeur and creativity of Apple branding in its earliest stages, making commentary on his rocky relationship with young daughter Lisa and her mother Chrisann Brennan (played by Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston), his equally tumultuous relationship with his close personal friend and assistant Joanna Hoffman (Winslet) as well as the extensive tug of war with his original founding member Steve Wosniak for recognition of the original Apple 2 Team which initially got the Apple commercial boat rolling. Boyle also looks extensively at Jobs’ lineage, and his accompanying destructive personality characteristics that developed as a result.
Despite recent quotes in the press which say that “Steve Jobs isn’t totally accurate, but that’s OK”, well if its OK that’s enough praise for Close-Up Film to give the film a go!
Credited as being written by Andy Sorkin (2010’s The Social Network and 2011’s Moneyball) and directed by Danny Boyle (the creative mind behind Trainspotting), if those aren’t unique seeing points then we at C-UF don’t know what are?
Audiences who fail to capitalise on the Festival (closing) Gala screening of Steve Jobs can catch the film in cinemas nationwide soon after.