Jobs is a 2013 Biopic about the life of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, directed by Joshua Michael Stern and starring Ashton Kutcher as Jobs and Josh Gad as Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak. The supporting cast includes Dermot Mulroney, Lukas Haas, J. K. Simmons, Lesley Ann Warren, Ron Eldard, Ahna O'Reilly, John Getz, James Woods, and Matthew Modine.
The film tells the story of Jobs' life from when he was a college student in 1974, to the founding and growth of Apple Computers, to Jobs' involuntary departure from Apple, to his return to Apple in the 1990s.
Compare Pirates of Silicon Valley, another film about the early days of Steve Jobs and Apple—as well as Bill Gates and Microsoft.
Another biopic, Steve Jobs, based on his biography of the same name, was released in 2015. It is directed by Danny Boyle, written by Aaron Sorkin and stars Michael Fassbender in the lead role (after a few actors dropped out) and Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak.
Tropes:
- Adapted Out: Much like Pirates of Silicon Valley, Apple's other co-founder Ronald Wayne is never mentioned. However, the film includes a nod to him with a brief appearance of the Apple I manual which he wrote and designed the Apple logo on the cover.
- Best Served Cold: Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney), Jobs' old friend and Apple's first investor, does not support Jobs when the Apple board boots him out of the company in the '80s (despite a promise to the contrary). When Jobs comes back a decade later, he cans Markkula.
- Biopic: Verging on hagiography. Despite showing some of the more unattractive aspects of Jobs' personality (dumping his old friends, refusing to acknowledge his daughter), the tone as a whole is quite worshipful.
- But Now I Must Go: Steve Wozniak, disappointed in the new corporate culture at Apple and having grown distant from his old friend Steve Jobs, quits.
- Call-Forward: Late in the film Jobs is seen futzing with his Sony Discman and complaining about how it's a piece of crap. Apple eventually invented the iPod, which made the Walk/Discman and the CDs it played obsolete.
- Disappeared Dad/Glorified Sperm Donor: Jobs knocks up his girlfriend just as Apple is starting to take off. He deals with this by dumping his girlfriend and refusing to admit the child is his, going so far as to decline visitation rights with his daughter even after he's been found legally responsible for her support.
- Weirdly, Jobs' reconciliation with said daughter Lisa is left offscreen. She just pops up one day, sleeping on his couch.
- Foregone Conclusion: Almost averted. The film ends about a decade before Jobs' death in 2011. However the title card that comes up before the end credits reveals Steven Paul Jobs 1955-2011.
- The Ghost: Bill Gates is mentioned several times but never shown, not even in the scene where an enraged Jobs calls him and screams about suing him for every penny he has.
- How We Got Here: The movie starts with Jobs introducing the iPod in 2001 before jumping back to the 1970s. The film never quite reaches back there either, ending with Jobs' return to Apple in 1997.
- Insufferable Genius: Steve's high standards for every new computer design results in revolutionary advances, but develops really antagonistic relationships with both the crew designing the computer and the fellow board members. In a subversion of Bunny-Ears Lawyer, his revolutionary computers are also over budget, over priced and over marketed, resulting in declining profits and eventually being removed from his own company.
- Jerkass: Steve Jobs may be brilliant, but he also has a hard time not acting like a terrible person when other people don't do what he wants them to. He also throws his girlfriend out when she becomes pregnant (and denies the child is his even when a paternity test proves she is), refuses to grant the engineers that were with him from the beginning stock options, and constantly parks in the handicapped spot on the Apple campus
- Mononymous Biopic Title
- Mythology Gag: Wozniak and Jobs argue about the name "Apple" and Wozniak cites Apple Records, the music company owned by The Beatles. Wozniak jokes that Jobs is insisting on the name because he likes Bob Dylan better than the Beatles. In Real Life Apple Computers and Apple Records litigated over the name off and on for thirty years before finally settling in 2010.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Hippie college student Steve Jobs walks around campus barefoot.
- Protagonist Title
- Time-Compression Montage: The film covers events between 1985 (when Jobs was kicked out of Apple) and 1996 in about 30 seconds using this. Mostly consisting of news reports about the gradual decline of Apple and Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer.
- We Used to Be Friends:
- Jobs rather cruelly kicks Daniel Kottke (Lukas Haas), his old friend and an original employee of Apple from the garage days, to the curb, refusing to give him any shares in the company.
- And much later, Jobs fires Mike Markkula, who put in the initial capital that helped Apple grow out of Jobs' father's garage (though that one has at least some justification - see Best Served Cold above).
