BlackBerry: A tech tale heading from 50m units a year via betrayal to zero market share

Big-brand biopics are the most pervasive movie trend of 2023, with movies on everything from crisp flavours (Flamin’ Hot) to cuddly collectables (The Beanie Bubble) offering a shortcut to recognisable intellectual properties, without the multi-billion dollar acquisition price tag.

Thus far, the glossiest of these have either sanitised (in the case of Air) or exaggerated (Tetris) key world-conquering events in conglomerate history.

BlackBerry, which recounts the rise and epic fall of the once-sought-after handset, is precisely the opposite. In the early 2000s, some 70 million BlackBerry users – including Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga – embraced the revolutionary idea of accessing email by mobile phone.

Writer-director Matt Johnson mines Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, for an appealing tale of technological hubris.

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As the film opens, Research in Motion, the Canadian company co-founded by quiet boffin Mike Lazaridis (Jay Buruchel) and social animal Douglas Fregin (Johnson, again), is struggling to get monies owed from USRobotics.

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

Enter Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), the hard-nut shouty businessman who helps fend off larger corporate predators. And then Steve Jobs announces the iPhone, and panic sets in.

Working from a screenplay co-written with Matthew Miller, Johnson’s film breaks down the technology for the layman while chronicling the dizzying rise from prototype to the Crackberry era, when the device sold 50 million units a year. The tumble towards 0 per cent market share is swift, however, and – cue a neat Shakespearean flaw – predicated on a key betrayal of the company’s engineering principles.

Pitched somewhere between The Social Network and The Thick of It, BlackBerry brings a welcome touch of anarchy to the corporate drama. There are fun period details – kudos to production designer Adam Belange – and an impressive ensemble cast, including 1990s stars Martin Donovan and Cary Elwes.

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Filmed in and around Waterloo, where BlackBerry was invented, some scenes were shot in secret by cinematographer Jared Raab. That stealth injects an energy that matches the inventive DIY spirit of The Dirties, Johnson’s much-loved debut feature.

There’s considerable historical worth, too. A decade is a long time in Silicon Valley. Lana del Rey immortalised the BlackBerry’s erotic potential with BBM Baby in 2011, and yet the events depicted in the film feel generations away.