TRAILERS

Jay Baruchel in Matt Johnson's Geeky Film 'BlackBerry' Official Trailer

by Alex Billington
March 15, 2023
Source: YouTube

"You want to be great, you need to sacrifice. The more painful the sacrifice, the greater you'll be." IFC has revealed the trailer for the Canadian film BlackBerry, telling the remarkable success and downfall story of the Canadian company Research in Motion (known as RIM) - creators of the BlackBerry handheld device. This recently premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, where it received mostly positive reviews. IFC set it to open in theaters starting May in the US. BlackBerry tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone. BlackBerry is "a whirlwind ride through a ruthlessly competitive Silicon Valley at breakneck speeds." Starring Jay Baruchel as Mike Lazaridis, Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie, Matt Johnson as Doug Fregin, plus Michael Ironside, Saul Rubinek, Cary Elwes, Rich Sommer, SungWon Cho, and Michelle Giroux. I saw this at Berlinale and it's a good film, very geeky and intense, but compelling and humorous in just the right way. Definitely recommended for fellow geeks like me and the RIM boys in this.

Here's the official US trailer (+ poster) for Matt Johnson's BlackBerry, direct from YouTube:

Intro from Berlinale: "Two mismatched entrepreneurs – egghead innovator Mike Lazaridis and cut-throat businessman Jim Balsillie – joined forces in an endeavour that was to become a worldwide hit in little more than a decade. The device that one invented and the other sold was the BlackBerry, an addictive mobile phone that changed the way the world worked, played and communicated. But just as BlackBerry was rising to new peaks, it also started losing its way through the fog of Smartphone wars, management indecision and outside distractions, eventually leading to the breakdown of one of the most successful ventures in the history of the tech and business worlds." BlackBerry is directed by the Canadian indie filmmaker Matt Johnson, director of the films The Dirties and Operation Avalanche previously, plus the series "Nirvanna the Band the Show". The screenplay is written by Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller. This initially premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival earlier this year (read our review). IFC Films will debut Johnson's BlackBerry in select US theaters starting on May 12th, 2023 coming up this spring. Intrigued?

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