Ian's marriage is, of course, a focus of the film, since his wife was not only its source and co-writer but co-producer. His bandmates sometimes look at him with that inward expression people get when they wonder if they have enough gas to get to the next gas station. There is a lot of performance footage, but Riley sees Ian not so much performing as functioning. He is played by Sam Riley, who makes him seem always alone. It is in black and white and gray, of course, and we sense Ian was a man who dreamed in shadows, not colors. The movie is quietly, superbly photographed and acted. Listen to the two albums the band made, and you hear his lead vocals as relentless complaints against -what? The melancholy that prevents him from feeling the emotions expressed by his words? There is irony in the band name Joy Division, because Ian seems to experience little joy and much inner division, as an almost passive participant in his own career. The title of Deborah's book, Touching From a Distance, could describe all his relationships. It is based on a memoir by his wife Deborah (played by Samantha Morton), a teenager when they married, and directed by the photographer Anton Corbijn, whose early photos helped establish Curtis' image as young, handsome and sorrowful. "Control," one of the most perceptive of rock music biopics, has been made by two people who knew him very well.
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