IFC Films unveiled the official trailer for BlackBerry, an upcoming docudrama that retells the story of the meteoric rise and fall of the iconic smartphone brand. Starring Jay Baruchel as visionary engineer Mike Lazaridis, the movie explores the entrails of corporate business in America, showing how market pressures can lead to either innovation or total failure.
The trailer introduces us to Lazaridis and Douglas “Doug” Fregin (played by Matt Johnson), two friends who came up with the idea that would change the personal communication landscape forever: putting an email service inside mobile phones. Unfortunately, what Lazaridis and Fregin had in raw brilliancy, they lacked in marketing skills, condemning their groundbreaking product to perish in oblivion. That’s why Lazaridis decides to give a large chunky of his company to salesman Jim Balsillie (played by Glenn Howerton), a cutthroat capitalist who puts profits ahead of quality without any second thought.
Balsillie would help Lazaridis to launch BlackBerry, the smartphone brand that would dominate the market before Apple and Google got into the mobile game. However, the swift turn of Lazaridis’ company into a multimillion-dollar monopoly would also affect the engineer's personal relationships and push away the people who trusted him the most. It’s an insane story that BlackBerry tells with a lot of good humor, as the new trailer underlines, turning a grim tale of greed into one of the year's best movies.
When Is BlackBerry Coming to Theaters?
Based on Jacquie McNish's book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, BlackBerry is directed by Matt Johnson from a script he wrote with Matthew Miller. BlackBerry had its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, receiving rave reviews from critics worldwide. While the subject of BlackBerry might sound like something that only tech geeks can appreciate, Johnson and the entire cast did an excellent job making a funny and tragic film that perfectly retells a complex true story without overwhelming the audience. So, this one is definitely worth keeping on your radar.
BlackBerry also stars Cary Elwes, who appears in the upcoming action flick Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Saul Rubinek (Hunters, True Romance), Rich Sommer (The Devil Wears Prada, Mad Men), Martin Donovan (Tenet, Big Little Lies), and Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Scanners).
BlackBerry comes to theaters on May 12. Check out the new trailer and film’s synopsis below.
Adapted from the bestselling book Losing the Signal, BlackBerry tells the story of the spectacular rise and meteoric fall of the world’s first Smartphone. A humorous but unforgiving modern-day tale of big business and the relentless need to stay on top.