Control

The Weinstein Company, 119mins, TBA
Directed by
Anton Corbijn

Dutch photographer Corbijn moves into filmmaking with the story of the life and death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. Who is this guy and why should we care? The film answers the first question.

We meet Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) in 1973. He's a moody teenager who likes to listen to David Bowie. On a lark, just after the British equivalent of High School, he marries Debbie (Samantha Morton) and gets a job. So far, this is nothing special. In fact, it's rather boring. Then some friends tell him their looking for a singer for their band. He auditions. They decide to call the band “Joy Division” after a Nazi brothel from World War II. The name sounds familier, for some reason…oh, yeah, it's a real band and was briefly famous back in the day. So Ian and the rest of the band (James Anthony Pearson, Joe Anderson and Harry Treadaway) get a record deal.

This is the problem with a group that had only a cult following thirty years ago. You don't recognize the music so you don't care about the people who made it. While it's sad that he has a horrible disease, he makes up for it by cheating on his wife with journalist
Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara). It's tawdry and boring, something that might be balanced by the great music, but unfortunately there isn't any. Unless you're a fan, and there aren't too many of you out there, give this a pass.



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