Reviews from SXSW: Blackberry

Like any good long-term Austinite, I have taken multi-year stretches off participating in SXSW for mental health reasons.  That said, the opportunity to attend the North American premiere of BlackBerry, about the rise and fall of Research In Motion, the company that made the smartphone some referred to as “CrackBerry,” proved irresistible. 

As I drove up to the Zach Theatre on South Lamar I noticed a couple young SXSW volunteers filming a TikTok dance on the lawn outside, confirming my suspicions that I shouldn’t be there.  After paying a $10 parking fee (should have seen that coming) I collected my ticket and waited for showtime with my fellow Hyperrealist Justin Norris.  

At showtime the packed Zach was buzzing.  I hadn’t seen a film at this theatre, which is known more for musical stage productions, and was surprised how big the auditorium was, with a huge screen and steeply sloping seating area.  

BlackBerry was introduced by programmer Doug Jones and director Matt Johnson, who also plays a supporting role in the film and apparently wears colored headbands at all times, onscreen and off.  Johnson mentioned he had re-edited the film after its recent world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and hinted he might do so again after this second-ever screening.  “Be very deliberative where you laugh,” he instructed us.  “Sincere reactions only.”

Hopefully he won’t change a thing.  Adapted from the book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacqui McNish Sean Silcoff (and I just hit my word count), BlackBerry proved to be a rollicking account of the ancient past, the early-mid 2000s.  A punk-rock tweak on the tech-docu-drama template set a decade ago by The Social Network, Johnson’s film is light on its feet and mercifully devoid of ponderous Aaron Sorkin-isms, yet considered enough to make some pointed observations about the perils of hardball capitalism.

Jay Baruchel, barely recognizable behind thick Dahmer glasses and a gray wig, digs deep into the role of Mike Lazaridis, Research In Motion’s founder.  Mike is brilliant and resourceful - waiting in a pitch meeting, he becomes irritated by a buzzing intercom machine and fixes it with a paper clip on the spot.  Mike just wants to create a game-changing communication device, but he’s too conflict averse to manage his team of grab-assing engi-nerds, and the company is floundering.

The pitch meeting, with investment executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton of It’s Always Sunny), is over before it starts.  Mike and his partner Doug (played by Johnson) are about to lose everything when Balsillie reconsiders and decides to muscle his way into the BlackBerry family.  Doug hates the guy, but Mike decides he is willing to swim with the sharks if it will help him fulfill his ambitions.

This witches brew of personalities simmers for a good while before boiling over in a string of borderline-screwball zingers and mishaps.  Johnson and co-screenwriter Matthew Miller deliver handsomely on a classic setup, mining comedy gold from the culture clash between the bullet-headed sharks in suits and the puffy, bespectacled geeks just trying to enjoy movie night at the office.  

Balsillie, played by Howerton as a buttoned-up maniac who goes from zero to Human Torch in nanoseconds, is an absolutely punishing character.  Insatiably hungry for success but never satisfied, he rages at business partners, subordinates, and private jet pilots alike with the same ear-splitting shriek.  Watching him march into the R.I.M. office for the first time is like watching the flame of a lit fuse racing toward a bomb, in a funny way.   

Johnson directs with a high-energy, rock and roll vibe, aided by cinematographer Jared Raab’s constantly darting and zooming camera.  (In the after-film Q&A, the filmmakers noted that the camera was often not in the same room with the actors to give the narrative a fly-on-the-wall quality.)  The film zips through the technical stuff with such finesse that only in hindsight do we realize how much information on cell carriers and data loads has been shoveled through the plot pipeline.  

Hopefully this film finds an audience in the cinema before hitting the streaming market.  The laughs hit hard in a packed theater and they support a surprisingly affecting story about dreams, compromise, and the Sisyphean nature of chasing success.  As one audience member noted in the Q&A, “It was really poignant to see everyone pull out their iPhones at the end.”

Blackberry will be released in theaters May 12.