subtle, well-acted docudrama

Rating: 8/10 (3 August 2008)

"Control" is a biopic about Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the 1970's British rock band Joy Division, who killed himself in 1980 immediately before the group was to embark on its first American tour. The movie chronicles Curtis' early days in Manchester, the formation and rise of the band, his unhappy marriage, his serial philandering, his uncontrollable epilepsy, and his lifelong battle with depression.
One might be tempted, looking at the bareboned detailing of his life, to ask if there is really anything new here. And indeed, Curtis' story seems to follow a fairly standard arc for the lives of artists in general and rock musicians in particular (though there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of illicit drug use going on in this case), and as such the movie doesn't show us much of anything we haven't already seen countless times before in similar works. Yet, "Control" is so cool, understated and restrained in its handling of the material that it succeeds in drawing us into the lives of these characters in spite of the over-familiarity of the tale. The conflicts are real and the emotions raw, particularly when dealing with Curtis' rocky relationship with his wife, Deborah, who loved Ian unconditionally but could never get him to reciprocate those feelings, partly because Ian had fallen in love with a Belgian fan he met while on tour.
In a beautifully controlled and thoughtful performance, Sam Riley poignantly captures the sadness that seems to lie ever present at the core of Curtis' being, while Samantha Morton conveys the almost desperate state of a woman too much in love to realize, until it is too late perhaps, that she isn't receiving love in return (the Matt Greenhalgh screenplay is based largely on Deborah's memoirs chronicling their time together). Much of the anguish Curtis went through in his life served as source material for the lyrics to many of the group's songs, a number of which are used to provide a running commentary throughout the film. The movie also makes effective use of voice-over narration to try to figure out what is going on in that troubled head of his.
For his impressive directorial debut, photographer Anton Corbijn has wisely chosen to shoot his film in artful black-and-white, the better to capture the starkness of the scene and the state of his character's mind. Joy Division purists may object to the fact that Corbijn has had the actors themselves perform the songs rather than dubbing in the originals, but they do a fine job overall in interpreting the pieces.
Whether Curtis, in the long run, had a harder life than many who don't wind up committing suicide is not for us to determine. What the film does make clear, however, is that once he felt he was losing control over his life (symbolized by his constant and seemingly incurable epileptic seizures) and had pretty much made a mess of things as a husband, a father and a lover, his purpose for continuing in the struggle seemed to have disappeared. What a sad conclusion to come to, especially when one is only twenty-three years old. With subtlety and insight, "Control" movingly distills the essence of that sadness.