Overrated and disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (27 October 2007)

this film misses the 2 most important parts of Ian Curtis's life: his profound and debilitating depression and the role Manchester played in his development.
the doc JOY DIVISION does much better in capturing Curtis and the band at their most honest.
CONTROL is clichéd and third-rate. it's a joy division movie with stock characters not real people and it could've been directed by a b-director like Taylor hackford. it's also way too family friendly and eager to please everybody: Ian's wife, Deborah; the band; Martin Hannett. much of the jokes and key moments of the film are taken directly from Michael Winterbottom's much better film 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE.
Curtis's daughter wrote a great assessment of the film in the Guardian... http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2181041,00.html