Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
The story of Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis, from his schoolboy days in 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.
Control is elevated by Sam Riley's extraordinary, physically committed performance as Ian Curtis and Anton Corbijn's stunning black-and-white cinematography that transforms Macclesfield into something mythic and poetic. The biographical plot, while emotionally resonant, follows a fairly conventional rise-and-fall musician arc, and the ending, while inevitable and affecting, doesn't subvert expectations. The film's distinctiveness comes largely from Corbijn's unique visual language rather than a wholly original narrative conception.