Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Blackberry. This guide contains everything you need to understand the film. Dive into our detailed library of content, covering key aspects of the movie. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!
What is Blackberry about?
Blackberry takes many cues from The Social Network in its exploration of an Internet-age tech founder. The latter film focused on a depiction of Mark Zuckerberg that leaned into the irony of someone who couldn’t maintain friendships or romantic relationships creating a platform meant to facilitate those very things. Blackberry uses Mike Lazaridis to document the erosion of idealism in a corporate environment. Mike begins Blackberry in a place where quality is paramount. But over the course of the film the many forces that make up the business world serve to corrupt Mike’s values, leaving him, much like Zuckerberg in The Social Network, at a poetic low of simultaneously having everything and nothing.
Movie Guide table of contents
Cast
- Mike Lazaridis – Jay Baruchel
- Jim Balsillie – Glenn Howerton
- Douglas Fregin – Matt Johnson
- Carl Yankowski – Cary Elwes
- Charles Purdy – Michael Ironside
- John Woodman – Saul Rubinek
- Paul Stannos – Rich Sommer
- Ritchie Cheung – SungWon Cho
- Written by – Matt Johnson | Matthew Miller
- Directed by – Matt Johnson
Why is the movie called Blackberry?
It seems we’re witnessing the birth of a new genre. Instead of the traditional biopic like Lincoln or Oppenheimer, we’re in the era of product origin stories. Air, Blackberry, Tetris, Madden. The two forerunners of this were The Social Network in 2010 and Moneyball in 2011, both Sorkin screenplays.
While The Social Network opted for a more poetic title that added a thematic frame to the origin story of Facebook, other films have opted for a more straightforward approach. By doing so, they lose out on nuance and dimensionality. But they gain in authority. Any other film that ever tries to cover the story of Blackberry has to compete with Blackberry. It’s declarative and carries with it a sense of official-ness. That’s why Christopher Nolan called his movie about the Dunkirk evacuation Dunkirk. It’s why he called his movie about Oppenheimer Oppenheimer. It’s why Spielberg called his movie about Abraham Lincoln Lincoln.
As we see this initial rush to build out the product origin genre, it seems a safe bet that many of these “first to market” stories will try to go with the most direct title possible to not only capitalize on the built-in audience and energy around the product but to also plant the flag at the top of the mountain that all future storytellers will have to maneuver around.
With The Social Network, it was a David Fincher movie written by Aaron Sorkin. It could be called Poo Poo Good Bad and be the No. 1 movie on its opening weekend. They had some leeway. At a certain point, we’ll probably see the poetic titles come back. That could be because it’s a Fincher/Sorkin situation where the prestige is enough to sell the film. Or because it’s a second-time-through. If there’s another movie about Blackberry, they might call it Withered on the Vine or Hold the Line.
Now it’s your turn
Have more unanswered questions about Blackberry? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!
