‘BlackBerry’ tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone. A film by Matt Johnson, starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside, Martin Donovan, Michelle Giroux, SungWon Cho, Saul Rubinek, Cary Elwes, and Matt Johnson.

A biographical comedy-drama film adaptation of LOSING THE SIGNAL: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Canadian authors Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff published in 2015.

In Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Research in Motion CEO Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his best friend and co-founder, Douglas Fregin (Matt Johnson), pitch their all-in-one mobile device, the PocketLink, to Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), vice president of Sutherland-Schultz. The PocketLink combines a pager, cellphone, and email machine, communicating on the unused bandwidth of the UHF spectrum. However, Jim Balsillie rejects their pitch, stating that Sutherland-Schultz is a commercial manufacturing company and does not invest in venture capital.

After Vollmer Group acquires Sutherland-Schultz, Jim Balsillie is fired. He sees potential in Research in Motion’s (RIM) products to succeed in the market, but he also sees that its CEO’s nerdy persona will not suffice in the brutal business world. Balsillie conceals his job termination and deceptively tells Mike and Doug that he will resign from Sutherland-Schultz and help sell their products if they make him CEO of RIM and give him half of the company.

Doug declines Jim’s offer, asserting that RIM is thriving without him and already has a $16 million deal with U.S. Robotics to manufacture modems. Jim, however, recognizes this as a common tactic used by large corporations to crush smaller competitors and drive them out of business.

By the time Mike realizes U.S. Robotics’ deceit, RIM has already lost the $1.6 million it loaned from the Bank of Montréal to manufacture modems. To rectify the situation, the company brings Jim on as co-CEO and gives him a 33% of the company. Jim helps manage RIM’s finances and deal with U.S. Robotics, and he discovers that the competitor is aware of RIM’s new all-in-one mobile device.

Because U.S. Robotics has been developing a similar, yet unsuccessful, device for a year, Jim pressures Mike to produce a working prototype as quickly as possible before their competitors bring their phones to market. Ultimately, the entire RIM team works together to build the PocketLink prototype just in time for Jim and Mike to present it to John Woodman (Saul Rubinek), CEO of Bell Atlantic, who is impressed by Mike’s idea, which solves a problem that their engineering team has been unable to resolve for nearly a year.

RIM’s PocketLink prototype soon became the BlackBerry 850, debuted on January 19, 1999, gradually gaining market share with its ability to send and receive email and encrypted messages. RIM developed and released more models, which gained popularity among notable public figures and celebrities. By September 2011, RIM had reached a peak of 85 million activated phones, equivalent to 43% of the cellphone market share.

The film is compelling, a testament to the screenwriters Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, who managed to adapt the long and complex narrative around the creation of BlackBerry into a film that is entertaining, funny, and highly engaging, particularly Matt Johnson who directed, co-wrote, and portrayed Douglas Fregin. The depiction of specific moments from the 2000s era is impeccable, with amazing detail in clothing and environment.

The cast delivers impressive fictional performances, particularly Jay Baruchel, whose portrayal adds personality to his character and makes viewers root for him, even though we all know that BlackBerry is defunct.

BlackBerry premiered at Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin on 17 February 2023. The film was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on 12 May.