Steve Jobs was the creative genius behind the creation of Apple and some of the most important technology products of this century. Professionally, he truly was the leader of an orchestra making beautiful music. But on a personal level, he was a difficult person to get along with given his perfectionism, his need for control, and his low view of human nature.

Before he died at the early age of 56, Jobs chose Walter Isaacson to write his biography. This author had fashioned substantive tomes on Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, formidable men who had a tremendous impact on their times. Danny Boyle, the director of Steve Jobs chose writer Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) to concoct a screenplay based on Isaacson's biography. Instead of following the traditional path of reviewing a life in chronological order, this imaginative screenplay presents the story around three moments: the product launches of the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT cube in 1988, and the iMac in 1998.

Michael Fassbender gives an astonishing and dazzling performance as Steve Jobs, the gifted entrepreneur who possessed a keen sense of what the public wanted even if they themselves were clueless. We watch and wince at his interactions and conflicts with former Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels); Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), one of the members of the Apple Macintosh development team; and Steve "Woz" Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Apple co-founder, a former friend, and collaborator who was appalled at Jobs's cold scorn of other developers.

Boyle, a talented director whose ethical dramas are always pulsating with energy, keeps the dialogue moving at a fast pace. Even though he paints a harsh and unflattering picture of this immensely successful entrepreneur, he also gives us a surprising example of the healing that eventually takes place in Jobs's heart with his daughter Lisa. The person most responsible for this miracle of grace is his marketing chief Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) who keeps pushing him to "fix things" with the child he had once denied was his. With the skill and fierce wisdom of a soulmate, she challenges him in a variety of ways to identify his feelings, to determine what beliefs cause his negative emotions, and to cease and desist in his self-destructive behaviors.

Joanna is the kind of person we all need in our lives at one time or another. They draw out the goodness and decency within us; they speak to us words of wisdom; and they encourage us to change our actions when we are headed in the wrong direction.

Thanks to Academy-Award-caliber performances by Fassbender and Winslet, Steve Jobs not only delivers moral insights on bringing emotional intelligence to work but sheds light on the tenderness, empathy, care and concern needed to animate a genuine and meaningful father-daughter relationship.