Control – 2007 | 121 mins | Music, Drama, Biopic | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn’s first feature film is a monochrome biopic charting the life Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis from his teenage years in Macclesfield to the period before he killed himself at the age of 23 on the eve of the band’s first US tour. The low-budget film was made for just £3 million and is adapted by Matt Greenhalgh from Touching from a Distance, the book written by Curtis’s widow, Deborah. Corbijn was a natural choice for director having photographed Joy Division numerous times after moving to London in 1979 and directing the video for their song Atmosphere in 1988. Curtis is portrayed by Sam Riley, an unknown former warehouse worker who was plucked from obscurity to play the iconic singer in his first lead role. Riley’s representation is eerily uncanny and authentically captures the guilt-ridden husband and manic performer. Of the support cast, many of the films best lines are delivered by Toby Kebbell as the band’s sharp-tongued manager, Rob Gretton.

Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) has aspirations beyond the trappings of small town life in 1970′s Macclesfield. Wanting to emulate his musical heroes, such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop, he joins a band, and his musical ambition begins to thrive. Soon though, the everyday fears and emotions, that fuel his music, slowly begin to eat away at him. Together with Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris they form Warsaw, and subsequently change their name to Joy Division. A suitable manager arrives in the shape of self-assured Rob Gretton (Toby Kebbell) and the band is quickly signed to Tony Wilson’s Factory label. Married young to Deborah (Samantha Morton), with a daughter, Curtis is distracted from his family commitments by a burgeoning relationship with another woman; rock journalist Annik Honoré. His new love and the growing expectations of the band begins to manifest itself in his health. With epilepsy adding to his guilt and depression, desperation takes hold. Surrendering to the weight on his shoulders, Ian’s tortured soul consumes him and he commits suicide on the eve of what was to have been Joy Division’s first US tour in 1980.