Movie Review: 'Blackberry'

Blackberry (2023)

Directed by Matthew Johnson

Written by Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller

Starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Cary Elwes, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside

Release Date May 12, 2023

Published May 8th, 2023

Blackberry is a story of technology, hubris, and the ways in which the world has been brought together via technology but people remain, quite predictably, human. The story of the rise of the first trendy handheld communication device, Blackberry charts the astonishing growth and precipitous fall of a fad unlike anything before it. Blackberry became a staple of high class living in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of the Blackberry became a meme before memes were cool. No caricature of a businessman was complete without them holding a Blackberry.

How the Blackberry thus came and went as a phenomenon is a ripe subject for a movie. After all, how does something as ubiquitous and beloved become ancient and nearly forgotten in the span of just over a decade? It's hard to quantify, even less than 20 years after the Blackberry, how big the Blackberry got and how quickly it fell out of fashion. There are few phenomenon's quite like it. Perhaps a reasonable comparison for modern audiences might be Tiger King. The famed Netflix series was the hottest thing in the world and by the time it came for a sequel, people had already forgotten the people involved.

The Blackberry lasted longer as a product but as a pop culture staple, the comparison is pretty good. Both became afterthoughts quicker than anyone involved could have imagined. The Blackberry's remarkable fall has roots in the way modern IT has changed the landscape of innovation. Where in the early days of the industrial revolution the innovation life-cycle was decades, today, the innovation life cycle is measured in years. Things in today's IT world change so quickly that even beloved innovations can expect to be outmoded within three years.

There's a reason why we are on the 14th generation of the IPhone in the 16 years since it was introduced by Steve Jobs and his turtle neck. Technology is now a shark that must swim even when it sleeps. The Blackberry story was the trial balloon of modern technology. Innovators need to look no further than the 2002 introduction of The Blackberry and that same product's obsolescence a mere 5 years later when the IPhone crashed the market.

As charted in the movie, Blackberry, the writing was on the wall from the early days. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), the brains of the operation, was always in over his head as his employees walked all over him and took advantage of his genial good nature and lack of social grace. It's no wonder now, with grave hindsight, that Lazaridis would fall victim to a hard charging snake like Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Lazaridis just wanted to make new, helpful technology, a noble pursuit. He needed a ballbuster like Balsillie to push him to deliver his best, and it worked, if only for a moment in the span of our new technological evolutionary cycle.

The casting here in Blackberry is rather brilliant. Jay Baruchel, known as a waif and a shrinking violet, when he isn't an obnoxious denizen of a Judd Apatow film, is just the kind of guy who would get run over by a big personality like that of Glen Howerton. The former star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star has a loud and brash personality that befits a scruples free businessman chasing every dollar and imposing his will upon the geeks and nerds that exist under his weighty boot. The dynamic is familiar, a genius who doesn't want the hassle of leadership and a dictator who is hungry for power at all cost come together like halves of a whole.

That the whole of Blackberry was built on a failing foundation from day one is no surprise. The movie has no pretense in the portrayal of the compromises, outright cheats, and lies that helped build Blackberry into an ever so briefly world-conquering business. While Baruchel hides away and innovates, Howerton bloviates, postures and makes promises he cannot possibly keep. This is well demonstrated in a series of scenes that show Howerton's Balsillie recruiting the best of the best engineers from America's top companies and promising them money and stock that he has absolutely no ability to offer them.

The engineers appear fully aware that the company will never be able to pay them the money they are promised but they are happy to pull what large chunks of cash they can from the company before the lying, cheating, and stealing is revealed and the house of cards that is Blackberry comes tumbling down. The plot construction of Blackberry is rather ingenious as the film rushes from big moment to big moment, setting up stakes that make sense and immediately having those stakes paid off, for good and for ill, in cycles that reflect the modern pace of the I.T evolution, brought to bear on a 100 minute movie.

It's a fascinating, insightful and well-acted film. This is by far the best non-animated work in the career of Jay Baruchel. He brings a series of surprising qualities to Lazarides. History would seem to tell you that he got taken by Balsillie and was rode out on a rail. That's not exactly what happened. What we see in Blackberry is a man who is overwhelmed but capable of adaptation. When forced to try and save his company, Lazarides becomes a bit of a shark in his own right. The slow death of his uncompromising dedication to perfect products is at the tragic black heart of Blackberry.

Glenn Howerton as well delivers a career best piece of work. At first you may not recognize the sharp eyed, quick witted Howerton, head shaved into a perfect pattern of balding, and sniveling, charmless egotism, but once he's the head of Blackberry you can see Howerton's talent for playing sociopaths shine through. His Balsillie has some Dennis from It's Always Sunny in his DNA but perhaps, even more ruthless and self-focused. In the wrong hands, this character could fall into a parody of greedy predation. Howerton makes Balsillie a real person, a deeply cynical, greedy, and shark-like man willing to be the last living cockroach if it means he gets the best of everyone.

The story of Blackberry is the thesis statement on the evils of predatory capitalism. A man who just wants to make a really good communication product is quickly consumed by the constantly craving maw of a capitalist beast that must be fed at every moment. Those incapable of feeding the beast are consumed by it and Blackberry is just the kind of capitalist cautionary tale that gets right at the heart of the way constantly seeking profits changes people, their motivations, and how it alters them on a fundamental level.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's A Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read consider subscribing to my work on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one time tip. Thanks!