To quote Jeremy Clarkson, I am inspired by bridges not Pentium Processors. But I’m also aware enough to realise that great engineering spectacles are now at least partially designed with the aid of computer technology. With no crystal ball to guide me, I imagine it’s highly probable that the likes of Steve Jobs will one day be held in the high esteem those such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Joseph Bazalgette are now.

If it is to happen, it is regrettable that the film biopic Jobs will be of little use to those wishing to understand his legacy. After 122 minutes of this uneven, uninspiring film I was given to understand that the man was a narcissistic ogre who could be a brute, a bully and totally impervious to the feelings and well-being of those in both his personal and professional spheres. What I failed to glean was what drew people to him and why they would stick by him long after he had shafted them.

In the inexplicably over-looked film, Me and Orson Welles, Christian McKay in his Bafta-nominated role shows the charisma and wonderful genius of Welles  who could command the loyalty of his friends and associates despite having the same major character flaws displayed by Jobs.

Unfortunately, Ashton Kutcher’s limitations as a dramatic actor were laid bare in this film. Adopting an exaggerated, lolloping gait, more reminiscent of Roddy McDowall as Galen in Planet of the Apes, was no substitute for a rich and layered performance demonstrating the complexities of the man.  Throughout the film, I was always conscious that I was watching Ashton Kutcher undertaking a skin deep impersonation of Jobs, trying just a little too hard, but failing to convince. He just didn’t nail it.

But it would be wrong to lay the blame for this soggy pudding of a film solely at the feet of its lead actor. Its flaws were many and varied.

The script from Matt Whiteley was episodic and jumped from one facet of Jobs’ life to another with little thought to segue or linking theme. We saw the young Jobs as a college drop out, reject his girlfriend with an intense and deeply spiteful callousness after she told him she was pregnant. Thereafter, he denied paternity even when biological tests and the legal system determined otherwise; he refused to acknowledge his daughter, Lisa. Yet we saw no more of his family life till many years later when he appeared to be happily married with a young son and the now teenage Lisa ensconced in the family home. We were given no idea what had led to this transformation or how, why and when Jobs had embraced his previously rejected daughter. Strangely, the film’s chronology ended prior to the advent of Jobs’ terminal illness – how he dealt with that and how it affected his outlook on the world would surely have been a fascinating insight into the man but the opportunity was left begging.

The film’s script made much of the fact that Jobs wanted innovators, creators, blue sky thinkers – people who would bring something totally left field to his organisation and its products. It was somewhat ironic therefore that direction from Joshua Michael Stern was formulaic and brought nothing new to the genre. The film’s editing was also most untidy although there can be no complaints over the cinematography.

Further films detailing Jobs’ life are apparently in the pipeline. Let’s hope they bring greater clarity to the subject than this plodding, underachieving effort.

**

Tim Meade