Film

BlackBerry director Matt Johnson: ‘We had to shoot secretly as we were making the film without the company’s participation’

Canadian filmmaker’s new movie is a brilliant tech saga about the smartphone that fuelled the CrackBerry craze

Blackberry: Jay Baruchel, Michael Scott, James Tiskin, Matt Johnson, Ben Petrie and Ethan Eng in Johnson's film. Photograph: National Amusements

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Tara Brady
Thu Oct 5 2023 - 05:00

The writer, director, actor and all-round creative Matt Johnson has a lot going on.

The Dirties, his no-budget breakout from 2013, which cemented his reputation on the festival circuit, was an inventive, unnerving, unexpectedly entertaining film about North American school shootings. Operation Avalanche, his 2016 follow-up, offered a conspiracy-led history of Stanley Kubrick’s supposed involvement in a fake moon landing.

On the other side of the camera, Johnson is an accomplished actor: his turn as the squirming boyfriend in Anne at 13,000 Ft is a cringe-making joy.

His third feature as director is BlackBerry, a brilliant tech saga that’s as Canadian as its Toronto-born maker. “It’s one of the reasons that I thought making the film would be interesting, because so few people know that BlackBerry is Canadian,” says Johnson, who also stars in the movie. “This was a small Canadian company from a small Canadian city. And it’s also one of the only things that Canada really has in terms of international impact. Outside of hockey players, we’re basically a country of bureaucrats.”

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Remember the CrackBerry craze? Johnson does. But only at a remove. Now aged 37, he was working on the cult low-budget web series Nirvanna the Band the Show at the moment in 2008 when Research in Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry, was valued at $55 billion. Two years later its key product was the world’s best-selling smartphone, with 43 per cent of the market.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at collecting ice after someone’s invented the fridge. It’s impossible to compete

—  Matt Johnson, writer, director and actor

“The only person I knew who had one when I was young was my dad,” Johnson says. “I was completely uninterested. I didn’t get it. I thought it was a boring business machine. [I was aware] a girlfriend’s friend had one, because she always talked about getting people’s BB Pins. The first time I’d ever really touched one was on the set of the movie. But that was lucky. Because I was a total outsider I had to learn about the product and cellular communications in a way that allowed me to explain to other people who knew nothing.”

Adapted from the book Losing the Signal, Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s tale of tech hubris, Johnson’s film unpacks the history of the iconic phone, from its inception to the disastrous 2007 design for BlackBerry Storm – a device that failed to keep pace with the newly introduced iPhone.

It’s an epic story. Research in Motion was founded by Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin in 1984. It went stratospheric in the early part of this millennium, when BlackBerry users, enthralled by its full keyboard and pocket-friendly email capacity, included Barack Obama, Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker.

“I like to refer to Research in Motion as being like the very best ice collectors, who would go out to the Arctic and bring back ice in salt, so people could refrigerate their food,” says Johnson. “And then Steve Jobs invented the refrigerator. It doesn’t matter how good you are at collecting ice after someone’s invented the fridge. It’s impossible to compete.”

Pitched somewhere between The Social Network and Office Space, Johnson’s film introduces Lazarides, the company’s boffinish chief executive (played by Jay Baruchel), and Fregin, his boyish cofounder (played by Johnson), in 1992, when Research in Motion is more like a frathouse for geeks than a cutting-edge tech company. Outmuscled in a deal by USRobotics, the company quickly realised it needed a shark in its corner. Enter Jim Balsillie (the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Glenn Howerton), who as joint chief executive brings Lazarides’s PocketLink prototype to the telecommunications conglomerate Bell Atlantic. Cue a hostile takeover attempt, unprecedented network issues, the rise of rival Apple products and – because this is a Canadian film – an ice-hockey subplot.

[ BlackBerry joins the ranks of the tech dinosaurs ]

“I did 18 months of research where I was talking with people from the 1990s who set up cell towers and explained to me how basic things like packet exchange worked, and what the real innovation of the BlackBerry was,” says Johnson. “Most people don’t know what was so revolutionary about this phone even after they watch the film. There’s only that one scene where Jay Baruchel explains the concept of push data, which was a truly brilliant innovation. Before that [the use of] only a few of these early smart devices would crash a network, because they consumed so much data.”

BlackBerry is the best-reviewed of the currently voguish brand biopics, a wave that has washed up Air, The Beanie Bubble and Tetris. While many of these projects have depended on corporate co-operation, Johnson shot his film stealthily around Waterloo, the city where the BlackBerry company is still based.

I think just the fact that the story was being told was huge for them. They were quite shocked to see themselves on screen at all

—  Matt Johnson on BlackBerry engineers

“We had to shoot secretly because we were making the film without the participation of BlackBerry, and they are still powerful around that region,” says Johnson. “I’ve gotten to know Jim since the premiere, and he’s a wonderful guy. It was important I didn’t meet him before. I would have been too accommodating – I’m a Canadian. We’re in this moment of hyperconsumerism, obsession with social media, and disconnection due to technology. And all these films about products are trying to unpack that. What sets our film apart is that, when I’m watching a lot of those films, I feel like I’m watching a commercial, and there’s a true story in there that we’ll never know. Ironically, at least in Canada, Mike, Jim and Doug are now having a bit of a renaissance in terms of their reputation.”

When the team screened their film for engineers and former BlackBerry staff, they got their best response so far.

[ BlackBerry gets stuck between a rock and a hard place ]

“I had kind of expected that the run-of-the-mill engineers would have issues, but it was the opposite,” says Johnson. “They were elated. I think just the fact that the story was being told was huge for them. They were quite shocked to see themselves on screen at all. For the three main guys it’s more complicated. Jim had a great sense of humour about it. I haven’t met Mike, but I think it’s harder for him. In some ways he’s still in a room, trying to fix BlackBerry’s problems.”

BlackBerry is in cinemas from Friday, October 6th