You could argue that the recent preponderance of movies about products—Air, Tetris, even Barbie—are symptoms of a sick society obsessed with brand name flash and the superficial trappings of success. Or you can make a mental note that BlackBerry is hitting cinemas on August 17. The choice, as ever, is yours.
Loosely adapting the factual book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, director Matt Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Miller, tells us a tale of big ideas, even bigger dreams, corporate malfeasance, and capitalist ruthlessness—all about the birth of the smartphone.
Jay Baruchel and Johnson himself are big brain boffins Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, respectively, whose fledgling tech company draws the attention of entrepreneur Jim Balsillie (Glen Howerton), who figures these nerds are going to come up with something very cool and very marketable. That turned out to be the BlackBerry, more or less (and certainly for our purposes here) the first smartphone.
Given how you’re probably reading this, you know that revolutionised the world and made our principal players obscenely rich—which inevitably leads to the fevered egos, greedy machinations, and ruthless backstabbing that drive the plot.
However, BlackBerry smartly plays all this for dark laughs, which puts it a cut above the likes of Air, essentially a love letter to a shoe. It’s got more in common with more sober takes on similar material like McDonalds origin story The Founder and Facebook flick The Social Network, which framed their subjects in a less-than-laudatory light.
Critics have praised the film, calling it “…a terrifically entertaining look at the rise and fall of a generation-defining gadget” so we’re keen to check it out, but for real: surely this is one movie that is meant to be watched on your phone.
