Control

Synopsis: Joy Division were on the brink of worldwide success. Singer Ian Curtis, guitarist Bernard Sumner, drummer Steven Morris and bassist Peter Hook had taken the genres of 70s music they loved and helped create a new wave of music that fused punk and dance to shattering effect. His band had taken the UK by storm but on the eve of an American tour and potential world domination, the band was finished when the singer committed suicide at the early age of 23.

Joy Division hold a place in the hearts of many music fans, their song Love Will Tear Us Apart has become an anthem for every disillusioned aesthete since it was recorded. Inspired by glam rock and punk; the band fused the atonal guitars of New Wave with the syncopated drumming of the dance revolution that was about to take over the Manchester music scene and the avenue that New Order, the band that grew from the ashes of Curtis’s suicide, explored even further and to much success. It was an epochal time in British music when they were signed, in blood, to Tony Wilson’s Factory Records (those interested in the subject should check out Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People, 2002, if they haven’t already).

Newcomer Sam Reilly is captivating as Ian Curtis. Whether on or off the stage, he brings to Curtis a charismatic charm that many listening to the band’s doom-laden repertoire.would not have suspected he had. The actors who play the rest of the band perfectly portray their real-life counterparts. Joe Anderson, in particular, is the living embodiment of the irascible bass player Peter “hello ladies, come and have a bit of Hooky” Hook. Special mentions must also be made of Samantha Morton as Curtis’ wife, Deborah, and Tobey Kebbell’s hilarious turn as the band’s manager, Tony Bretton.

The film’s concert sequences are exhilarating, sweat-drenched affairs and the actors look completely immersed in their roles. The same tactics have been used before to far lesser effect in films like Alex Cox’s otherwise-excellent Sex Pistols biopic Sid & Nancy (1986) but here they work wonders. Reilly is mesmerising whenever he approaches the microphone. His performance of the classic Dead Souls just prior to a major epileptic attack seethes with rage and sends shivers down the spine. Curtis had a unique way of performing; his jerking, rhythmic dancing style is seen now as an extension of his long battle with epilepsy.

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