The world was forever changed on January 9th, 2007 when Steve Jobs took to the stage to announce the iPhone. But years before, with a journey beginning in 1996, Mike Lazaridis created the first prototype of his invention that successfully combined the workings of a phone, messaging, and e-mail device. Creating the world’s first smartphone, Lazaridis would soon become the CO-CEO of one of the biggest laughing stocks of the tech world, Reasearch in Motion, come to be known as BlackBerry Limited. Based on Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry (2023) follows the rise and fall of BlackBerry, starring Jay Baruchel as tech-whiz and founder Lazaridis and Glenn Howerton as businessman and co-CEO Jim Balsillie. In a year inundated with the biopic, BlackBerry (2023) stands out in its unique cinematography, True North Canadian pride, and stellar performances, from its humble beginnings in Waterloo, Canada, to BlackBerry’s reign as the only name in the smartphone game, and all the way to its downfall and becoming “the phone that people had before the iPhone”.

BlackBerry follows Lazaridis and Balsillie, as they embark on creating, marketing, and selling the world’s first smartphone, eventually caught up in legal action and failing to keep up with a changing tech world that came with the invention of the iPhone, the phone that only shows the keyboard when you want it to. In their rise to the top, their struggles in the business and tech worlds, as well as struggles in their personal relationships and changing of goals begin to hinder their success, until they are forced to make tough decisions in order to keep the company going.

Baruchel and Howerton give stunning performances as the unexpected duo of Lazaridis and Balsillie, with Baruchel capturing Lazaridis’ passion for delivering perfection and Balsillie delivering a stunningly complex look at businessman turned hubristic co-CEO Howerton. Supporting the two is director Matt Johnson as Douglas “Doug” Fregin, based on the real co-founder of BlackBerry. Described by the author of the book as becoming a kind of conglomerate character in the film, filling the role and voice of multiple real-life people, Johnson provides a stellar supporting performance of the man with the laughs and the heart, never lacking a passion for tech, at the core of the inception of the company.

The film oozes 90’s nostalgia, and so perfectly captures this time when the tech world was on the precipice of something great. Dial-up tones on the phone as programmers are gaming on the internet, countless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles References, excitement across the developer team when movie night was chosen to be Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the film celebrates this time that was the birth of the smartphone. In a montage early in the film of references to cellphones and new technology in pop-culture moments and films, viewer’s can’t help but recognize, from moments before a BlackBerry is even shown on screen, that despite its fall from the top, the BlackBerry forever changed the way the world would interact with phones and the internet.

In terms of its cinematography, the film takes on a style similar to that of HBO’s hit show Succession (2018-2023). Filmed with a shaky hand held camera, featuring zooms on actor’s faces, the film has a very observational style similar to a documentary. From extremely close shots on faces, to medium and long shots often looking through glass windows or from behind a wall or door, the audience is always excruciatingly and intentionally aware of their place in the film as voyeurs. Watching the action through barriers, or constantly reminded of the medium of film through which they are watching, this style enhances the viewer’s stakes in the film, as this observational style places them more directly in the room holding the point-of-view of these cameras. Always present, watching, this style works for a biopic, capturing the real-life downfall of the BlackBerry in a way that is constantly reminding viewers not only of their place watching the film, but the very fact that this is a film, based on an unauthorized book, based on a very real company. While this style places the viewer directly in the room with the action as voyeurs, it also reminds them, with each shake and zoom of the camera, of the distance this film has from the true story and the assumptions it has most likely made about these real people. The camera places each viewer in the place of a character in the world of this film, but also works to remind each viewer of the inherent assumptions the film has made about these two real men.

BlackBerry Limited, once known as Research in Motion, once led the game of smartphones and technological innovations. From its humble beginnings in Waterloo, Ontario, to meetings worldwide with businessmen and tech companies, the BlackBerry came to be known as a status symbol in the pockets of everyone important. But with the invention of the iPhone, and the hubris of the men leading the company hindering the progression of the BlackBerry, their fall from the top would happen fast. Director Matt Johnson perfectly captures this rise and fall of BlackBerry in his 2023 film BlackBerry, highlighting the heart at the core of the company and its demise often left out of business articles detailing its collapse. Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, and Johnson himself give stellar performances of these three powerful men, paired beautifully with an observational camera style placing the viewers directly in the rooms where the tech magic was happening. Never shying away from references to where they were located in Waterloo, Canada, and never short of its hockey praise, the film embraces BlackBerry’s roots as Canadian, placing Canada back on the map in both the technology and film worlds. Working simultaneously, these aspects all come together to create this stunning look into the world of Research in Motion, and the phone that people had before they had the iPhone.

BlackBerry (2023) will be released in theatres across Canada on May 12, 2023.