Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs movie. You know, the good one, written by The Social Network’s Academy Award-winning Aaron Sorkin, directed by Slumdog Millionaire’s Academy Award-winning Danny Boyle, starring not-yet-Academy-Award-winning-but-once-nominated Michael Fassbender and funnyman Seth Rogen, and adapted from Walter Isaacson’s record-breaking biography endorsed by the subject himself before his death.
And, judging by the trailer, the movie doesn’t seem to be doing the founder of Apple any favours. In just over two and a half minutes, we are treated to glimpses of Job’s mercurial temper, his verbal abuse of employees who failed to meet his expectations, and his all-round god-complex.
The very first scene in the trailer opens with an exasperated Steve Wozniak (Rogen) demanding of Jobs, ““What do you do? You’re not an engineer. You’re not a designer. You can’t put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board. The graphical interface was stolen. So how come, 10 times in a day, I read Steve Jobs is a genius. What do you do?”
““Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra,” Jobs replies rather arrogantly.
Burn. The next scene isn’t soft on the man either. Taking place just before one of Job’s legendary product reveals, it shows the man berating his engineers for a detail they didn’t get quite right. Fed up with his harangue, one engineer finally retorts back with an allusion to his go-complex, a reply that Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), member of the original Mac team and the NeXT team politely stifles a laugh at.
It gets worse. Jobs is seen denying that he’s the father of his kid daughter, despite the paternity test clearly having proven otherwise. Hoffman, who seems to be playing the sane and more humane of the characters here, again pleads with him, reminding him of just how rich he is and how little his ex-girlfriend is asking for in child-support, and yet he vehemently denies it again.
Like we feared, Michael Fassbender looks nothing like Steve Jobs – that accolade still belongs to Ashton Kutcher. And yet, Fassbender is a far better actor than the latter, and here he brings a gravitas and force of personality akin to the Apple founder. The acting seems competent all round, which is exactly what you’d get when you round up such a stellar cast and crew together.
Apple, for its part, has been going about in a big way about how Isaacson’s biography doesn’t portray its revered co-founder in the right light. Cupertino’s top brass, normally reticent in matters related to the company, have been vocal in interviews and ads, stating that the acclaimed biography gives a flawed impression of Jobs. Never mind the fact that Job himself wanted Isaacson to pen his biography and gave it his blessing without even taking a peek at the final product.
Steve Wozniak, on the other hand, liked the trailer. The technology genius did have some reservations about the words his character spoke in the movie, stating that he would never speak that way in real life, but still felt ‘honoured’ to be played by an actor as talented as Seth Rogen. Wozniak, who consulted with the actors and crew before filming, added that the trailer captures the tone and temperament of Steve Jobs, adding that he momentarily teared up at that paternity scene.