Saw BlackBerry (2023), a docudrama about the creation of the first smartphone to really make it big. It's billed as a comedy and contains many comical element, but it's in the manner of the Silicon Valley show: it's zippy and fast-paced, but much of it is just how tech business works as far as I understand it. There are man-child nerd-bros hanging out and eating pizza and working on diabolical tech problems, and then there's the sharks in suits stalking the halls, trying to negotiate deals and pitch products. It's very fun to watch.
So, I liked the film. The conversations between the nerds are very true to life, both the dumbfounded incomprehension of meeting someone who is not familiar with Star Wars and also the techno-babble brain-storming sessions ("Ok, so we can't shrink the data, what if we spread it out instead") There's also a major character who is the spirit of goof-off tech start-up culture. He's scrappy and probably won't amount to much (I mean, ordinarily, in a company that didn't get a docudrama made about it) but he's not there to get rich, he's there to play with tech. He becomes the moral compass of the film, even as he remains an irrelevant, slightly self-important doof. I have met this guy dozens of times.
The film is not uproariously hilarious. I watched the trailer and it contains most of the best jokes, but watching the boardroom shenanigans is tremendous fun. 90% of the film is watching our heroes rise to power and fortune and that's just lovely. As we all know, BlackBerry's are no longer the ubiquitous smart-phone, so we know this story has to end on a long slow decline, but the rise is fun to watch and the character are lovely. A fun film!
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