This review was originally part of our coverage for the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival.
Everyday technology expands so fast and with such intensity that high-tech novelties tend to consume history itself. For instance, it's hard to imagine a world where Google's Android and Apple's iOS were not the leading players of the cellphone game. Still, a little more than a decade ago, BlackBerry portables were coveted by every teenager and used by businessmen as a symbol of status. Directed by Matt Johnson, BlackBerry is a new docudrama that proposes to explore the rise and fall of the once-popular cell phone brand and its parent company, Research In Motion (RIM). And while the subject might seem uninteresting to people who just don't care about what happens inside big corporations, with BlackBerry, Johnson manages to craft a thrilling and moving story about friendship, pride, and the brutality of the free market.
BlackBerry takes us back to 1996, when visionary engineer Mike Lazaridis (played by Jay Baruchel) came up with an idea to revolutionize the communication market: putting an email machine inside a cell phone. While we are all very used to our smartphones nowadays, it hasn't been long since Lazaridis granted us internet access on the go. Even so, the BlackBerry brand has become almost unknown to younger generations, making Lazaridis' story ever more tragic.
While Lazaridis had the best ideas and the will to implement them to perfection, he lacked the business spirit needed to actually sell phones. That's why he joins forces with salesman Jim Balsillie (played by Glenn Howerton), a cutthroat capitalist who couldn't care less about the quality of Lazaridis' inventions. And so began RIM's journey to dominate the phone market in the US and the world, with Balsillie pushing for an aggressive expansion while Lazaridis tried to remain on his moral high ground.
Baruchel and Howerton play their parts to perfection, showing how the opposite personalities of RIM co-CEOs helped to keep the company ahead of competitors for over a decade. But BlackBerry also plays as a tragedy, as we watch Lazaridis compromise his beliefs in favor of achieving the impossible goals set both by Balsillie and external forces willing to engulf RIM's market. That’s what makes Johnson's movie work so well. Since Johnson's camera is concerned about the truth of RIM's story, BlackBerry cautiously explores the intricacies of the corporate world. Simultaneously, the movie still manages to keep the audience invested thanks to the emotional stakes of its very human characters.
BlackBerry's two leads are not alone in turning a corporate docudrama into a touching story, as Matt Johnson's Douglas “Doug” Fregin, Lazaridis' goofball friend, helped him create the RIM company long before Balsillie came into the picture. And for the entire duration of BlackBerry, Doug will try to keep Lazaridis grounded, pouring all his energies into making sure RIM is a company worth working for, where all kinds of nerds can feel welcomed. While Doug often serves as a comedic relief and helps to keep set the funny tone of BlackBerry, he’s also the emotional heart of the movie, a permanent reminder that some dreams are not worth selling, lest we lose our souls.
There’s no question BlackBerry does a beautiful job documenting the history of RIM. 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 docudrama never refrains from exploring the minutia of the corporate business. The movie is not only an homage to Lazaridis' groundbreaking technology, but it also dwells on the legal frauds and fake business promises that make the money machine keep turning in the capitalistic system. It also documents with precision internal errors and external surprises that eventually lead to the BlackBerry brand becoming obsolete. Still, Johnson's new movie pushes the boundaries of a docudrama by adding fun, surprise, and exciting the dramatization of a dense true history. And in doing so, Johnson makes a complex matter easy to digest and extremely entertaining.
Rating: A
BlackBerry is in theaters now.