Review: ‘BlackBerry’ – Short and sweet.

The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry: A Must-See Docudrama

Entrepreneurship vs. Corporate Gamesmanship

The new film BlackBerry is a docudrama that tells the story of the development and destruction of the titular device. It’s a superb portrait of the clash between entrepreneurship and corporate gamesmanship. The film is so good and so original in its handling of this tricky topic that by the end, it deserves consideration as one of the best movies ever made about business.

The Clash of Marketing Guys and Idea Men

BlackBerry is also a portrait of the clash between the natty marketing guys and the brilliant slob idea men, making it one of the most delightful such depictions since Revenge of the Nerds back in 1984.

Canada as a Central Character

Set in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry is a film that offers us an indelible rendering of Canada’s bifurcated nature. The country’s potential greatness is often subsumed in a modesty that seems to rise from an existential sense of inferiority in relation to the behemoth south of its border.

The People Behind BlackBerry

The film follows the people responsible for the BlackBerry, including Mike Lazaridis, a brilliant and wildly awkward fix-it guy played by Jay Baruchel, and Jim Balsillie, a raging volcano of ambition and fury played by Glenn Howerton. Matt Johnson, the extraordinary cowriter/director/costar of this remarkable film, plays Doug Feiglin, Mike’s early partner and closest friend, who serves as the movie’s conscience and its emotional center.

A Compelling and Satisfying Classic

BlackBerry is hardly blockbuster Hollywood fare, but it’s both compelling and satisfying in a manner that signifies it’s some kind of a classic. The film never loses sight of the fact that it is telling the story of how a device changed the world and then, almost instantly, found itself piled onto the scrapheap of history.

Canadian Cinema

BlackBerry might represent the high-water mark of Canadian cinema. To be sure, a lot of stuff has been made in Canada over the past 50 years, but a movie in which Toronto doubles for New York is not really a Canadian movie per se. By Canadian cinema, we mean movies made by Canadians, about Canadians, and set in Canada.

Canadian Auteurs

There are four Canadian auteurs, including Sarah Polley, Denys Arcand, and David Cronenberg. All three of them are very, very interesting, but their films are often recondite and odd. BlackBerry is hardly blockbuster Hollywood fare, but it’s both compelling and satisfying in a manner that signifies it’s some kind of a classic.

• Sarah Polley: a onetime child actress who has made documentaries and fictional films of uncommon delicacy and whose latest, Women Talking, won her an Oscar for best screenplay this year.
• Denys Arcand: a Québécois who makes talky, intellectually minded films in French. His masterpiece, which you should find and savor, is called The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.
• David Cronenberg: who has been writing and directing suspense and horror movies about the dangers of technology since the late 1970s. His best picture is probably The Fly with Jeff Goldblum.