As he portrays singer and lyricist addicted to prescription drugs to curtail the effects of epilepsy, Sam Riley as Ian Curtis is the picture of artistic success in the grandest British tradition a la Browning, Keats and all those Romantic poets who die of consumption while seeped in their own aesthetic.  He disintegrates before our eyes as his music seems to flow from someplace beyond him using him as a conduit channeling some of the most nihilistic expressionism of the post-punk music movement of late-70s England.

Based on Touching From a Distance by Deborah Curtis, Matt Greenhalgh's screenplay emphasizes the isolated solemn quality of Curtis and the bands he formed Warsaw, later re-naming themselves Joy Division, and how the simple yet literate songs about a complex human emotional world thrust them into the musical world arena with foresight from record producer Tony Wilson.  Springing from Punk, Joy Division is clearly post-Punk, writing and performing songs with themes that other bands were neither capable not willing to explore. 
If you have listened to their landmark album Unknown Pleasures, you will have heard the musical simplicity that blends lyrical bass lines with distorted guitar and drums and songs that when delivered by Ian Curtis speak various contradictory ideas that when taken as a whole describe a particular emotional and cerebral perception of the world that had not been achieved by Punk music.  This was rare for the year 1979 and the film shows the bands' position very well in their playing in small halls with attentive audiences that appreciated the artistic quality of the songs over the raw energy of the rhythm.

The black-and-white film stock suggests historical documentary and news reel simultaneously.  The vision of Sam Riley's Ian Curtis performing his day job as a civil servant finding employment for others seems counter to the rock life style.  In the view of director Anton Corbijn Curtis' education and knowledge of traditional lyrical poetry was a key element that made him and his band stand out from all the other bands of that period.  In the United States it was a different matter- I had not heard of the band until many years later because frankly my musical tastes were firmly founded in Rock.  Very much like a scientist examines a hothouse flower in development, director Anton Corbijn takes great care to focus on the very personal domestic and aesthetic concerns of Curtis and how the musical atmosphere in England at the time and how this combines to form the nature of the writer and singer of Joy Division.

Acting in the film is uniform and well-delivered throughout with particular emphasis on the unknown actor playing Ian Curtis.  The relatively unknown actor Sam Riley captures much of the allure and charisma of Ian Curtis with a look although the actor has little of the real isolated look that the real Curtis showed mostly in his eyes as he appeared before the public, singing and dancing as if driven by the energy of a new music and dissociated from it simultaneously.  The early scenes showing us the young Curtis, influenced by the music and persona of David Bowie are better handled than the later ones- it's a near-impossible task for an actor to show a slow mental disassociation and breakdown without a physical or objective correlative, that is some action or gesture that indicates what's happening to the character's interiority. 

Director Anton Corbijn is ably cognizant of some particulars of Ian Curtis and Joy Division having worked with the band producing one of their more popular and haunting videos, so the purely visual aspects of character and action come across with a higher degree of acuity given what the actor Sam Riley is not able to convey physically.  The way Riley hangs a cigarette from his lips as he heads home to wife Deborah after being on tour and with girl friend Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara) speaks volumes about regret and despair that is inherently domestic in human nature yet classically tragic as well.  The story of Joy Division and their position as the prototypical post-punk band and their hero Curtis who was a typical working class employment agent who also exhibited a genius of lyric command of the English language adds new definition to the term ‘quiet desperation'.

Samantha Morton does a fine job playing a character doing much of the heaving lifting in the film.  A thankless, suffering role, Deborah is a picture of domestic identity, and the character is a type of a woman that defines a facet of Curtis' character.  Deborah is a high school sweetheart and proof to himself that he is not gay, and thus marries and Deborah is the antagonist to the artist's particular view of the world.

The way the two actors Morton and Riley play scene with utmost lack of irony brings a bit of rueful humor to the film.  Later in the film there is a scene as Ian and Deborah confront their situation as man and wife, father and mother to a child, with Curtis spending tour dates with his girl friend Lara's Annik Honoré.  The scene puts succinctly what Ian accepts about his rock-music lifestyle and what Deborah cannot visualize.
Ian: Don't divorce me.
Deborah: You love someone else.
Ian: What's that got to do with us?
It is a pithy moment because this states the perception of the intelligent mind that can see shade of reality that the average mind cannot grasp because of social conditioning.

Toby Kebbell as band manager Rob Gretton is a stand out in the film as a character who is unsympathetic yet very much a part of the sympathetic core of the characters surrounding Curtis and have a vested interest in seeing that he not only survives but is successful in his fight over his emotional demons as well as the physical stress of the epilepsy that attacks his composure.  

In the additional featurette "The Making of Control, there are interviews with the director Anton Corbijn and his association with the band from early on as director for one of their more popular music videos for the song "Atmosphere" which is included as an additional featurette on the DVD.  This disc is a great treat for any lover of Joy Division and their music.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older