Do you remember the Blackberry phone, the one people had before they bought an iPhone? Here’s the film about its rapid rise and equally rapid fall.
For a while, Blackberry had almost half of the mobile phone market before quickly disappearing.
A Group of Classic Tech Nerds
The dramedy Blackberry tells the story of Blackberry’s dramatic rise and fall. Best friends Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin run the nerdy tech company Research in Motion (RIM) in Waterloo, Canada.
Their workplace consists of a group of classic tech nerds, where the office has become an extension of their childhood bedrooms. Between working on advanced technological inventions, they play video games and watch movies.
The First Email-Enabled Phone
Mike and Doug have figured out how to make the mobile phone an all-in-one device with a computer, internet, and email. But as tech nerds, they lack the smooth-talking skills of a salesperson.
Enter the slick businessman Jim Balsillie from the company where they make an unsuccessful attempt to pitch their revolutionary phone. Jim recognizes the phone’s potential and steps in to take over.
The two friends, Mike and Doug, begin to drift apart as Mike, who appears to be the wiser tech genius, becomes CEO alongside Jim.
Who Is the Smartest?
Manly man Doug is more skeptical of Jim, and decisions are sometimes made over his head because Mike realizes they need Jim’s help to succeed. But perhaps it’s the total nerd Doug who is the smartest of the three? The comedy slowly turns into tragedy as the story starts to resemble Facit’s classic case, the Swedish tech company that refused to acknowledge that their expensive, bulky mechanical calculators would be replaced by cheaper electronic ones.
Premieres on June 16
The launch of the iPhone becomes Blackberry’s downfall as Mike refuses to acknowledge that Apple‘s solution with the keyboard on the screen is the future, not Blackberry’s minimal physical keyboard.
Blackberry was the first phone to have a keyboard and could send emails, not just SMS. At its peak, it had 45 percent of the mobile phone market, but today it has 0 percent.
In 2009, Blackberry was at its height, and in 2022, its software ceased to function, rendering the phones useless.
Whether you remember the Blackberry phone or not, the film about it is worth watching. It premieres on June 16.
The film Blackberry stars Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton as Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, with Matt Johnson playing Doug Fregin.
Other cast members include Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside, Martin Donovan, Michelle Giroux, SungWon Cho, Saul Rubinek, and Cary Elwes. The film was directed by Matt Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay with producer Matthew Miller. Additional producers are Niv Fichman, Fraser Ash, and Kevin Krikst.
The screenplay was adapted from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.
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