Thirteen Years On, Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs Still Struggles to Capture the Man Behind the Myth

Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs as a man who walks around barefoot and talks fast, and the movie mostly leaves it at that. Jobs wants to be a serious look at a visionary, but it keeps settling for a thin, flat one.

The film covers a lot of ground, from Jobs dropping out of Reed College in 1974 to the launch of the iPod in 2001. That is a long stretch, and it moves quickly. The problem is that almost nothing sticks. The script, written by Matt Whiteley, treats Jobs’s early years as a series of events rather than a character arc. We get a few scenes of him taking calligraphy classes, a trip to India with his friend Daniel Kottke, and a stint at Atari where he gets Wozniak to build Breakout. None of it lands.

Josh Gad plays Steve Wozniak, and he is the only person on screen who feels human. Kutcher, by contrast, plays Jobs as a cartoon version of himself: intense, impatient, and oddly cheerful about everything. The film never explains why anyone stayed loyal to him. It just assumes we should.

The supporting cast is wasted. Ron Eldard, Nelson Franklin, Elden Henson, Lenny Jacobson, and Giles Matthey all get a line or two. Dermot Mulroney shows up as Mike Markkula, and Matthew Modine plays John Sculley. None of them matter. The movie is so busy rushing forward that it forgets to let anyone breathe.

There are a few bright spots. The scene where Jobs pitches the Apple I to Paul Terrell, the store owner, is the closest the film comes to showing a real person making a hard choice. But even there, the movie leans on broad gestures instead of actual thought.

The film was chosen to close the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. That honor is hard to explain.

Key Facts
– Director: Joshua Michael Stern
– Writer: Matt Whiteley
– Runtime: 129 minutes
– Genre: Drama, History
– Score: 4.4/10

The film fails because it never asks the hard questions about Jobs. It shows him as brilliant and demanding, but it never explores what made him that way. It shows him changing the world, but it never shows him failing. And failure is what makes a person worth watching.

Trailer, via Open Road Films.

What Works

• Josh Gad gives Wozniak a real personality
• The Terrell pitch scene has some tension
• The calligraphy class is a nice touch

What Does Not Work

• Kutcher’s performance is thin and cartoonish
• Supporting characters are barely developed
• The story rushes through decades without pause

Jobs is a missed opportunity. It has a great subject and a decent cast, but it never finds the courage to dig beneath the surface. The final score is 4.4/10.

Ashton Kutcher · biopic · movie review · Steve Jobs · Sundance