Control

The only way I’ve even heard of the post-punk group Joy Division was because I so enjoyed 24 Hour Party People, the Michael Winterbottom/Steve Coogan evocation of the Manchester music scene of thirty years ago. So I didn’t come to this musical biopic with any of the prevalent mystique about the early demise of front man Ian Curtis, but unlike my equally clueless viewing of Last Days, Gus Van Sant’s take on Kurt Cobain’s suicide, this descent into depression and death kept me engaged. The very well-done recreation of Joy Division live carried the film for me. I respect the rock photographer and videomaker Anton Corbijn for avoiding easy psychologizing in his first film, and the widescreen black & white cinematography is lustrous and evocative. He offers more sympathy than diagnosis, but certainly provides the material for the latter. But unless you’re already invested in the myth of Ian Curtis, then he comes across as opaque, despite the brilliant performance of Sam Riley, especially in the musical sequences. Samantha Morton is hardly recognizable as his teenage bride, younger and plumper than one expects, but with her usual ability to invest mousey characters with wells of feeling. The film is based on the widow’s memoir, but offers fair play to the Belgian girlfriend, the other horn of the dilemma on which our Romantic poet hero is gored. Again, not taking sides is a virtue of the film, but also robs it of drama. (2007, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-78.)