Bleak, unflinching portrait of a genius

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2007)

In the history of popular music, Ian Curtis stands like a colossus. The music he created in collaboration with the other members of Joy Division met with limited commercial success initially but over the years has been massively influential on generations of musicians.
Now we have "Control", a brutally honest account of Ian's life. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the film oozes a deep arctic chill which successfully evokes the inner desolation that Curtis appears to have felt for much of his tragically short existence. The film moves at a brisk pace from his adolescence in uber-drab Macclesfield (outside Manchester) when he idolized David Bowie and Lou Reed, through the formation and rise of Joy Division, up to his suicide in 1980 aged 23.
Newcomer Sam Riley pulls out all the stops in his portrayal of Curtis. He portrays him as in many ways a very ordinary young man blessed with an otherworldly talent, but also cursed by epilepsy and a savage depression that left him unable to express his love and need for those he cared about in any other way except through his music. However, the film is unafraid to portray him as being at times jealous, controlling, self-centered and dishonest- particularly in relation to the women in his life. In "Control", Curtis is human, vulnerable- he makes mistakes, he lies and hurts the people who care for him the most. The film makes it clear just how much pain he inflicts on others, particularly after his death.
But it is also shown that he carries immeasurable remorse and self-loathing for not being the person that he feels that he should be, and is also painfully aware of how much he can hurt the people he loves. His life is a battle- against epilepsy and the side effects of the medication he is given to control it, and also against an insanely deep existential hopelessness about himself.
The supporting cast are nearly all outstanding in their portrayals of people who clearly value Ian beyond words but simply don't know how to reach him, or don't hear in his music his expressions of how much pain he is really in. The scenes where he performs "Dead Souls" and "Isolation" are truly heartbreaking in their depictions of a deeply anguished man who is basically screaming for help through his art, but cannot express those same feelings directly even to the people he loves the most.
In conclusion, this is a deeply moving and truly honest depiction of one man's valiant struggle to cope with a life that overwhelms him. Obviously, there is a lot of Joy Division's music featured and it sounds simply stunning. Anton Corbijn's direction is restrained, low-key, and unobtrusive. He doesn't add any spin or tack-on morals onto Curtis' story but instead allows the audience to reach their own judgments.
Ian Curtis gave the world so much, he fought until the end to see something other than darkness- yet even now continues to fill the lives of so many others with a deeply beautiful light. This film is a fitting tribute to a very human genius.
Ian Curtis. 1956-1980. RIP