Genre: True Story
Premise: The true story of the rise and fall of the Blackberry, a handheld internet device that become a phenomenon, only to get wiped out by the biggest company in the world.
About: Blackberry is the surprise movie of the year so far. It’s the little film that could. Glen Howerton, who’s famously played Dennis for the last 15 seasons on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, has transformed himself for the opportunity to play Jim Balsillie, a part that is getting him tons of acclaim. Matthew Miller, who wrote the script for director Matt Johnson, didn’t have a single produced credit to his name until now.
Writers: Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller (based on the book by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff)
Details: 2 hours long
I know, I know.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse just made all this money. Which means it’s the movie I *should* be reviewing today. I give Spider-verse all the props in the world. The first movie made 35 million opening weekend. This one made 120 million. That’s got to be the biggest percentage increase in box office sequel history.
But there’s another verse out there. A verse full of villains and heroes. A verse that tells one of the most classic tales in our history. If you squint, this verse isn’t that much different from Marvel or DC. I’m talking…….. about the Blackberry verse.
I kept hearing great things about this movie. It got great reviews. Great acting performances. Everyone’s tweeting about it.
But let me tell you why I’m really reviewing it. I’m reviewing it because every movie that gets made in Hollywood goes through a process. At the beginning, the script/project gets sent around town to all the A-listers. The biggest actors. The biggest directors. The hope is that you get one of those perfect A-list packages and now you’re really off to the races. You’ve got tons of buzz and hype behind you. And money! Lots and lots of money.
Unfortunately, most scripts don’t ever get the A-listers. And when they don’t get them, they go for the B-listers. The B-listers are still big time. Uncharted, with Holland, Wahlberg, and Rubin Fleischer directing? That was a B-Team. Movie did okay.
If you don’t get the B-Team, you can still end up with a solid movie via the C-Team. The stuff Gerard Butler is in, like Plane? That’s C-Team. And wherever you land, the corresponding amount of money you get, which crews you get, how many days you get to shoot – all of that ties back to who you can secure when you first go out with your project.
Sadly, the quality of your movie is linked to where you finish on that ladder. Your movie’s fate is determined before you shoot a minute of film.
So when a movie like Blackberry comes along and throws this equation back in the industry’s face – I’ll always celebrate that. Blackberry was working with the F-team. I guarantee the producers of this project were not setting up face time meetings at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica with Jay Burachel begging him to be in their movie. Ditto Glenn Howerton. I would go so far as to say they were probably their 30th-40th choices.
And yet, despite that, they still made an awesome movie. How awesome? You know how I was busting Air’s chops a few weeks ago because of how lifeless the directing was? We were in small offices on phone calls the entire movie? Blackberry operates in the exact same business world deal-making space, had 1/20th the budget that Air, and managed to look a hundred times bigger than that movie. It really is amazing what a difference directing makes.
If you don’t know the Blackberry story, this tiny company, Research in Motion, created by a couple of computer nerds, Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, came up with the first handheld texting/e-mail device. With the help of hothead outsider, Jim Balsillie, to run the business, they quickly became the makers of the coolest gadget in the business world, the Blackberry.
The movie focuses on the complex relationship between Mike, who’s great with engineering but terrible with people, and Jim, who’s terrible with engineering and also terrible with people. But Jim gets things done. He’s the guy who doesn’t care if you like him. He’s a force that is determined to take whatever business he’s running to the top.
Blackberry had a meteoric rise because of two things. One, everyone was addicted to the fun little click-y keyboard that you got to send texts back and forth with. And two, they didn’t have any competition. They were the first company able to capitalize on handheld wireless data and no one else was even close.
Of course, we all know what happened next. Apple showed up. And Blackberry made a big bet on the fact that nobody would want to give up their “crackberry” keyboard for some screen that you lifelessly typed on. The final act of “Blackberry” shows the company desperately trying to adjust to this new competitor even though they all know, deep down, that their product is dunzos.
You guys know I’m no fan of true stories and biopics.
With that said, the rise and fall of a person or a company is a very strong engine to write a story with. Because think about it. We all love to see the rise of something. It’s exciting to see someone get to the top, especially if we know beforehand that they do get to the top. Cause we have that fore-knowledge that the characters don’t. And we’re excited for them to reach the mountain top we’re waiting on.
And then, we all love a train crash as well. We all love the sinking of the Titanic. We can’t wait to see it. It’s part of our nature as human beings. So we like *that* part of the story as well – the fall.
In general, every story should be either rising or falling. That’s what keeps the story in motion. Where you run into trouble is if you’re staying neutral. You can stay neutral in a story for a little while. But not for long. The viewer wants to either start rising again or falling again. They need to be in motion.
So, plot-wise, this script was good to go.
The only thing left to make a great movie was characters. Glen Howerton’s, Jim, was fun to watch. He was, himself, an engine. He demanded that the story move. So we always enjoyed being in scenes with him because we knew he was going to be pushing other people to do things. Which results in conflict, which results in drama, which results in entertainment.
Plus, Howerton just had so much fun with the role. He knew this was his one shot at becoming a serious actor. And he took advantage of it. I don’t know if this movie has the financial backing to put together an Oscar campaign for Glen. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he got nominated.
The only downside of Jim is that Mike and Doug couldn’t possibly live up to him. Mike was so internal. He was so frustrated and could never quite get the right words out. In a way, that made me frustrated whenever he came onscreen. I wasn’t enjoying his character so much as enduring it.
And while Matt Johnson, who played Doug, exhibited the single greatest clueless expression I’ve ever seen in a film, that’s all he brought to the table. To be honest, it felt like an actor who wasn’t quite ready for this big of a role.
With that being said, Blackberry is such a win for movies. Like I said, it’s a feel good story of a movie that nobody was supposed to hear about. For it to be getting these great reviews and all this buzz, it’s just cool to see.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re going to write a true story or biopic, something with a clear rise and fall will do a lot of the work for you as a storyteller. You’ll always be in motion. Your only challenge will be making sure all the characters are compelling to watch. If you have that combo, your script will be unstoppable.
