Known Pleasures: ‘Control’ Review
Well, I liked it. I wasn’t totally blown away, but I think Control is just about as good a Joy Division movie as one could make. For one thing, the band was only active for about four years—from the infamous Sex Pistols show in 1976 to Curtis’s suicide in 1980. There’s only so much history to draw on. Remember also that much of the band’s in-studio and onstage sides were covered in 24 Hour Party People (2002).
And so Control tells a fairly simple story: boy meets girl, boy joins rock band, boy meets other girl, tragedy ensues. One of the ways Control succeeds is by not overdramatizing Curtis’s life. The ingredients for sensationalism are all there—the tortured genius, the other woman, the lure of the rock-and-roll lifestyle, the wife and baby back home, the epileptic fits and depression—but thankfully director Anton Corbijn uses a light touch. At times it may be too light, particularly if one isn’t already acquainted with Joy Division. The character of Annik, for example, is slightly opaque. It’s clear (and unsurprising) that Corbijn, a photographer, prefers to show rather than tell, and generally this approach works rather well.
What Control does best is create a sense of (to borrow a Joy Division song title) atmosphere. The movie is very much a reflection of Joy Division’s own music: It’s moody and beautiful despite (or perhaps because of) its relative simplicity. There’s a certain darkness that you can’t help but be attracted to and a restrained energy that occasionally explodes with spectacular results.
Incidentally, the movie breaks this sense of atmosphere exactly once, during the end credits. Apparently (I actually didn’t stick around for this—blame the group I was with) one of the songs that plays during the credits is a Killers cover of “Shadowplay.” There’s not much to be said here beyond this being a terrible misstep. Hopefully most audience members will have left the theater by the time the song plays.
The rest of the soundtrack is terrific: Bowie, the Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, Iggy, and of course, Joy Division. Word is the actors actually played all the live Joy Division scenes, and I must say the band sounded great. Speaking of the cast, the film is quite well acted. Sam Reilly does a great job as Ian, and Samantha Morton (as wife Deborah Curtis) can always be counted on to deliver a passionate performance. The best supporting actor is certainly Toby Kebbell (playing manager Rob Gretton), who manages to steal the show on a few occasions and inject some much-needed humor. There are in fact moments of lightness, and it seems Corbijn enjoys subverting the drab, gray world he has crafted.
A final note on the typography: The titles and credits are all in Helvetica, and they look great.
