Biopics and stranger than fiction stories are nothing new, but to have an overwhelming amount of films regarding commercial products and how they came to be all come out within weeks of each other is very bizarre indeed. From the very enjoyable Air, to the critically reviled (I haven’t and won’t watch) Tetris, and the few more we still have to come, it seems this boom is indeed hopefully a bubble that we have just found ourselves in for a brief period of time – a bubble that is soon to, if has not already popped. Of these films however, none of them have been anywhere near as darkly humorous or compellingly tragic to me as Matt Johnson’s Blackberry. A beautifully rough film with edges that avoids simplification to great effect.
Matt Johnson, whose irreverent and often faux documentary style films and TV shows have been wickedly funny works for a while now, has turned his irreverence and dryness to the true to life story of the rise and fall of the Blackberry phone, as written by Johnson and Matthew Miller based upon the non-fiction work Losing the Signal by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. Blackberry is a film built around three central figures who collided to of course make the iconic phone what it became commercially and in regards to the initial invention, before in each of their own ways they faltered to make the phone something that could stand against the I Phone, hence the tragedy of the piece. Tragedy is a word that feels apt here. There is not the slickness or clinical nature of a Social Network to be found here, nor the operatic nature of the bombastic Steve Jobs, instead rather Johnson’s film is gritty, realistic and shot in the same faux documentary (always live mics, always two cameras) improvisational style that keeps the story vibrant, exciting and down to earth. Johnson never lets his film or his characters become as iconic as their product of course was. The few times we do get montages of news stories of Blackberry’s impact on the technological world they are few and far between and serve merely as chapter points in the films decade spanning up and down path, and are unfortunately as obvious and cliché as those sorts of montages always are. In this up and down path Johnson and Miller also make the intriguing choice to skip whole periods and make great leaps in time, leaving us to then spend the next few minutes acclimatising ourselves to what has changed and where our characters now are. Johnson is so deliberate in his choices, yet so free-wheeling in his style that Blackberry working as well as it does comes off like a thing of chance, which sounds reductive (and probably is) but elaborates upon the films great nature.
The three
central figures at the heart of the film are all played with sterling brilliance
and are each in their way some of my favourite performances of the year thus
far – a joyous core trio of turns who are all some of my favourites of the year
thus far, even though we are of course only early into the movie calendar. Johnson
himself portrays the bumbling “goof” as he is sometimes referred to as of Doug
Ferrin, who despite of course his natural major intelligence fumbles in many
ways to have the professional prowess that the company needs as it advances.
Johnson is great here and manages to fill the character with enough gravity for
it to be more than just comedic relief, with the comedy still being greatly
enjoyable too. Jay Baruchel is the core inventor who goes through the greatest
arc through the film and it is in his shift from shy and one could even comment
naïve inventor to ruthless and imploding CEO that makes for much of the films
tragedy. Then on a whole other level is Glen Howerton as the absolute manic and
terrifyingly hilarious vision of all things Gecko-esque in a solidification and
personification of an 80’s Reagan hangover nightmare. Howerton is a powerhouse
of deliberation, volatility, vitalness and overwhelming fury. Howerton is hilarious
to a whole new level and is by far probably my favourite performance of the
year so far. Blackberry is a great film, but Howerton and Baruchel make
this a truly great film with a major entertainment factor and a surprising
tragic sheen.
A great 8/10, bordering on 9, a film whose darkness and humour give way eventually to great tragedy in a variety of different ways. The title of the non-fiction book that this film was based on has the subtitle The Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry. Johnson with great effect manages to chronicle both with immediacy and an eerie longevity, this is a movie whose final moments are still lingering with me and whose darkly hilarious highs are still making me laugh and are already leading to rewatches. This is a dirty and coarse film that revels in the idiosyncrasies and oddities of its true to life narrative and its characters, with three excellent core performances make it one of the more entertaining films of the year so far.
P.S. Let’s get Glen Howerton an Oscar. He definitely deserves it and although I would love to have Dennis Reynolds in my life forever, I think at this stage I would indeed prefer a life filled with more and more supporting and lead performances on film (and yes TV) in this dramatic vein. Or for that matter other comedic turns as well. At the end of the day more Howerton all the time and at least an Oscar nomination for his turn in this film should solidify that beautifully.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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