The ‘super Canadian’ ‘BlackBerry’ story Matt Johnson and Jay Baruchel wanted to tell

Up until two years ago, actor Jay Baruchel was using a BlackBerry. He still dislikes the other smartphones. “Life is not better for having one of these,” he said as he looked at his phone.

The Ottawa-born actor stars in the film “BlackBerry,” which charts the rise and demise of the world’s first smartphone.

Baruchel plays Mike Lazaridis who, with his best friend Douglas Fregin (Matt Johnson), co-founded the Waterloo-headquartered Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry phone.

Not many know it was a Canadian company’s success story, but Baruchel was well aware: “it was an important part of my connection to it,” said the 41-year-old, who still tries to use Canadian-made products when he can.

When the Montreal-raised Baruchel found out that Toronto filmmaker Johnson was making the movie, he had to be a part of it, Baruchel said in an interview in downtown Toronto.

“I thought, ‘What a cool way for us to do our first thing together by telling this f–king super Canadian story.’”

Johnson, on the other hand, had never used a BlackBerry in his life: “I never understood them. I didn’t have a cellphone until I was quite old, though.”

When the 37-year-old was approached to make the film, he didn’t know much about the company. After reading the book by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, “Losing the Signal,” he wasn’t even sure why producers wanted it turned into a film.

Then he made a personal connection: “This is what it was like for me to be a filmmaker with my friends,” Johnson said of the young men working on the phone in very small offices, in garages and at the University of Waterloo.

“I’m actually making a movie about myself and what it’s like to struggle to do something that you think is important, and then have success and have that success destroy your life,” Johnson said in a separate interview in Toronto.

His second motivation for wanting to make the film: “I’m so staunchly patriotic and I so love this country, and I always thought it was such a letdown that we didn’t get the credit I thought we deserved for inventing the smartphone.”

“BlackBerry” is a wildly fascinating story and well told, reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network” and “Steve Jobs.” Rounding out the compelling ensemble is Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie, who is ruthless, sharp and hilariously entertaining. The film delights as it walks the line between drama and comedy, packed with sharp writing and interesting facts.

One “really crazy” fact didn’t make it into the movie, Johnson said: when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened, the entire American cellphone network went down but, because BlackBerry was on a different network, American senators could still use their Blackberries.

“It created a huge market opportunity for Jim and Mike to do a direct deal with Congress to sell BlackBerries,” said Johnson. “You were forced to have a BlackBerry if you were a sitting senator or a congressman, and that was huge news for Research In Motion because they had penetrated the American politics market and that spread to business leaders very quickly.”

He believes “they would not have become a global phenomenon had it not been for that.”

Johnson not only directs “BlackBerry,” but co-wrote it as well as co-starring in it. It was Baruchel who convinced him to play Doug. Besides being good friends, the two share a deep love of Canada.

Baruchel feels “patriotism” has become a dirty word lately because “of the ugliness of nationalism across the world.” “But yes, Matt and I are both super patriotic here, raised to love this country and we both love movies and so, for us, it was like we just want to make movies in a place that we love and that matters.”

“BlackBerry” is “an underdog story of a small Canadian company punching above their weight with the big boys down South,” Baruchel said.

“The fact that Jim Balsillie, who is as American a Canadian who has ever existed … yet the entire time it’s about beating them … He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”

Johnson, whom Baruchel described as a genius, wanted to represent Canadian multiculturalism and so cast accordingly for the tech guys who worked at the RIM offices.

“The high school that I went to was in Mississauga and it was a total melting pot and so insanely multicultural, and I don’t think people outside of the GTA really realize what it was like in these schools … everybody’s from a different country and you’re all best friends.”

He noted that Waterloo University had the “best engineering programming in the country, one of the best in the world.”

Initially, the film included a title card that showed the location as “Waterloo, Canada,” but Baruchel insisted it be “Waterloo, Ontario.”

At the time of the interview, Johnson didn’t know how the real-life businessmen of RIM felt about the film. He didn’t meet Lazaridis or Balsillie so as not to get “polluted in a way.”

“The film does kind of show their ugly side in a way and I just knew that unless they had a very, very healthy ego they would have problems with that at some level. Now that the film is done, I think they’re both going to be very happy with it.”

Marriska Fernandes is a Toronto-based entertainment reporter and film critic. She is a freelance contributor for the Star’s Culture section. Follow her on Twitter: @marrs_fers

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