BlackBerry is an instant Canadian classic about the thing people used before the iPhone – and it gets the Social Network treatment in Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton’s new movie.
BlackBerry and its parent company, Research in Motion, revamped the Waterloo, Ontario, region as an aspiring tech hub when the future of tech and telecommunications felt truly global. It was a period when anywhere could be the next Silicon Valley.
Kicking off in 1996, when the world was still tethered to desktop computing, the film follows a prematurely grey mechanical genius named Mike Lazaridis (Baruchel) and his best friend Doug Fregin (Johnson, in a very Johnson-y role as chief trouble maker) trying to find investors for their tiny company.
It’s a MoneyBro movie par excellence, right up there with Wall Street, Glengarry Glen Ross, Boiler Room and The Wolf of Wall Street. It shares their key, defining trait: 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.
Shot as if captured by hidden cameras – scenes are partially obscured by office furniture or caught with the intentionally unsteady hand of a cameraman who is in fear of being found out – the film has an air of DIY guerrilla, you-are-here naturalism.
BlackBerry is loose, almost improvisational. The camera roves, jitters and pulls focus in an instant. The poppy humour and fly-on-the-wall, hyperrealist style combine in compelling ways. Director Matt Johnson recreates the excitement that followed the invention of the first smartphone, amplifying the atmosphere of chaos that surrounds an industry run by brilliant but immature young men.
Blackberry, rated 14A, plays at the Patricia Theatre from July 11 to 13 at 7 pm, with a matinee on Thursday, July 13, at 1:30 pm. Running time is one hour and 58 minutes.
Gary Shilling is executive director of qathet Film Society.
