BlackBerry (2023) Movie Review: If I have learned something from indie filmmaker Matt Johnson’s debut and sophomore directorial venture, it has to be his understanding of nerds. But, what really makes him a perfect fit to make a biopic about the world’s first smartphone is his ability to find the silliness in some of the most serious things in the world. His debut film, The Dirties, was about two young men trying to make a comedy movie about their bullies, only to turn the narrative into something more serious. His second film, Operation Avalanche, was about two guys that are hired by the CIA to shoot a documentary, only to realize that they are needed for a bigger political motive that defies what they believe in.
Learning that, you must not be baffled to see him take the subject of BlackBerry head-on. Because, at its core, it is about two young men trying to build the world’s first and once in time – the most popular smartphone from the ground. They, of course, fail to do so because they do not have the tools to operate in the real world, with their solution to every problem being organizing a movie night back at the office.
Based on Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, Johnson’s film opens in 1996 where Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his best friend and business partner Doug (Matt Johnson himself) are fidgeting about this pitch they have to present. The duo has been secretly working on the idea of putting the internet into phones, but since they are not as business savvy as they are tech geniuses, they are unable to help keep their company Research in Motion, afloat.
When the businessman who is supposed to hear their pitch, Jim Balsillie (an exceptional Glenn Howerton), blows them off while also keeping their idea in mind; they get back to their office. However, the cunning man that Jim is leads him to reach out to the young tech geniuses with a business proposition of getting them out of debt and investing in this prototype that they are planning to build. His wants are, however, high, leading Mike and Dough to have second thoughts. Only to accept most of what he wants, seeing how they will be unable to bring this to the status it deserves. Overnight, Jim, with the help of his business skill and marketing suave, is able to sell the idea of the world’s first smartphone, and BlackBerry is born.
Now, the Canadian company was the talk of the town in the early 2000s. Everyone had the phone – from big celebrities to business tycoons to politicians. Putting the computer, literally and figuratively, into everyone’s hands was a revolutionary idea, and while it felt like there would be no stopping them, greed crept in. More hurdles in the form of secretive stock frauds and the advent of the iPhone cornered the company to a place of no return. Matt Johnson clearly identifies with this story of this homegrown company’s rise and fall. Since there was a lot of technical jargon in the source material, he carefully highlights the clutter and makes a film that moves and feels like a goofball black comedy in the vein of his other two films.
Of course, a lot of the groundwork is laid down by his influences. There is a lot of John Carpenter, Speilberg, and Fincher here, but the young director knows how to use these as narrative punctuations and not the narrative itself. The Social Network-esque movement of the screenplay is balanced out with a plot-driven approach about what it is like to be at the center of something big, but not realizing that everything in this world cannot be controlled.
I mean, the film solidly follows the formula of a biopic and yet never falls into its generic beats. Thanks in large part to a career-defying turn from Glenn Howerton, who nails every single confrontation like a champ. The personality clashes are at the core of BlackBerry; in fact, it feels like its entire DNA latches onto this aspect. Howerton makes sure that he is able to deliver a performance that grounds him in a real-life persona and yet makes him a terrible person who only thinks about himself. Baruchel, on the other hand, is clearly having a ball playing what would be one of the most important roles he has ever done. However, the slight shift in his personality traits in the later half of the film doesn’t feel all that convincing.
The film also has its set of flaws. The characters are never etched out well, and since we are directly put into the action without having any kind of leeway into their lives, a vacuum is created that doesn’t lead the film to greatness. In spite of that, this is a constantly engaging story told with great conviction.
