BlackBerry (2023)

Rating: 8.6

TL;DR - Definitely recommend BlackBerry if you like movies like The Social Network… it may not be quite as good as the Fincher film… but it really is a fantastic and engaging look at the rise and fall of the BlackBerry phone that blends intelligence and humour so well! It’s just well made all around… plus it’s a Canadian film!

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Film Info:

Premise: The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world's first smartphone.

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IFC Films

Directed by Matt Johnson

Screenplay by Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller

Based on the book “Losing the Signal” by Jacquie McNish & Sean Silcoff

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson, Cary Elwes, Michael Ironside, Rich Sommer

Runtime: 2hr 1min

Rating: PG

Biography, Comedy, Drama

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IMDb Rating: 7.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

RT Audience Score: 91%

RT Critic Average: 7.9/10

RT Audience Average: 4.4/5

Metacritic Score: 82

Letterboxd: 3.9/5

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Review:

written by Tyler Park

It’s quaint, looking back on it now, but in the decade before iPhones and Androids, BlackBerry was the smartphone. It was dubbed the “CrackBerry,” because of the seemingly addictive hold the sleek gizmo, with its satisfyingly clicky keyboard buttons, had on the market. I was too young to have ever had a BlackBerry myself, but I do remember playing BrickBreaker on my dad’s. And it was indeed the coolest thing… at the time. That was all before the release of the iPhone. Once that happened… everything changed.

Now, the BlackBerry is a relic. An also-ran. Or, as one character puts it in BlackBerry, the new movie about the early smartphone empire’s rise and fall, it’s merely “the thing people used before they used the iPhone.” But as this fresh, thoughtful comedy makes plain, BlackBerry is more than just a bleak cautionary tale. It’s a story of how tech culture, as we know it today, took root, bloomed, and died on the vine.

The story of BlackBerry’s rise and fall was too good to not get put on film one day. What I didn’t expect was that it would get the full-on Social Network treatment — or moreso, The Social Network if it was directed by the Safdie’s! The story is so excitingly told, the performances so watchable, and the dialogue so quotable that it becomes the verbal equivalent of an action flick—kinetic, suspenseful, and sometimes unexpectedly beautiful and weirdly moving. It really plays like an Aaron Sorkin script, and Matt Johnson shows he really has some genuine talent as a filmmaker. The movie plays like a mix of The Social Network, Steve Jobs, Succession, or even more recently, Air and maybe even The Wolf of Wall Street… so if you like any of those movies… I promise you you’ll love this! I ate it right up! I’m a sucker for these types of movies, and this was no exception for me! I was locked in right from the very start! Now, I won’t say this movie is exactly like all those films, this is like the knowing, bratty B-Side to those. Yeah, these tech bros changed our lives, but they were also total goons. After seeing this, I’d love to see Matt Johnson take a crack at an Elon Musk/Twitter movie someday!

The movie is a darkly comedic, satirical, and intelligent look at the rise and fall of BlackBerry. The most fascinating thing about the script, co-written by Johnson and Matthew Miller, is its structure. It shows us the beginning and end of this story but nothing else. The ellipsis in the middle gives the film a more intriguing energy than it would have had if it had followed the standard playbook of meticulously tracking the rise and fall of a product and its purveyors. It’s what it might feel like to watch only the first and last episodes of an excellent TV drama that ran for years—or maybe like the finance-bro equivalent of Full Metal Jacket, the only war film that shows naive recruits being trained/brainwashed at the beginning of the process and their cynical, hardened-by-war, final incarnations, but skips the middle part showing how the change happened. It worked for me in BlackBerry for the most part, however, the movie did get caught quickly summarizing past events a little too many times. I definitely would have liked to focus a tad more on some elements, but overall the movie does have a very good flow and tells you exactly what you need to know while also being very engaging and entertaining.

If I was to say one thing that didn’t work for me too well, it would be the cinematography. It took more of a Succession approach, with lots of handheld work trying to emulate the documentary/mockumentary style. But where Succession makes it work with very precisely planned movements and staging, I found the setups and framing here to be ineffective. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t really have the effect on me that I think they wanted it to. But that was very minor and I really didn’t notice it after a while. The needle drops and clips shown throughout the film were excellently chosen and fit the film and its tone very well!

The one place where BlackBerry feels less close to something like The Social Network is where the in-the-moment stresses and anxiety are the major selling point, much like in the TV series Succession. You can thank our three leads for that. Matt Johnson is known for getting naturalistic performances out of his comedic actors via copious amounts of improv, and while it’s hard to say whether or not that same improv was employed on set or if the script by himself and producer Matthew Miller was strict, there’s a snappy, yet undeniably human feel to the multitude of dialogue scenes. Jay Baruchel steps into the role of a compulsive tinkerer and professional pushover with gusto. Seeing him transition from someone who believes in the work first and foremost to the kind of corporate tyrant he used to despise is like a magic trick, never coming across as unnatural.

The true standout in this film, however, is easily Glenn Howerton. We’re gonna be talking about him in this film for years to come. It is positively unhinged mega-acting, he comes off as a genuine movie monster that devours everything in his path. Howerton drives this movie like JK Simmons drove Whiplash — he was simply a ferocious force of nature in this film.

Watching Matt Johnson’s film is akin to being in the maelstrom of the changing winds of the tech world. Surrounded by memorable supporting characters like Cary Elwes’ irritating Carl Yankowski and Michael Ironside’s gruff Charles Purdy, BlackBerry truly gets better as it goes. This pure momentum surges the story of three men with a common goal of making their mark on consumer technology. The ultimate looming specter of Apple and the iPhone, along with their combined personalities and greed, forward into a darkly satisfying finale that only cements BlackBerry as an early pick for one of the best movies of 2023. Giving the turbulent tale of one of the world’s first smartphone’s rise and fall an appropriately exuberant biopic, Matt Johnson transforms what could’ve been a dry visual representation of a Wikipedia article into a mini tech epic.

Blackberry is a phenomenal film that showcases a razor-sharp script and some of the best performances that I’ve seen so far this year. It perfectly encapsulates the rise and fall of the BlackBerry in such a funny, engaging, and thrilling way. Superb direction and editing. Matthew Johnson has created this year’s Social Network on a shoestring budget… and it turned out so great! I highly recommend it!

Plus, it’s a great opportunity to support Canadian film!

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Trailer: