CIFF: Control

The Chicago International Film Festival kicked off this week, and for the first time in the six years I've lived in Chicago, I'm able to see more than one or two movies. I have tickets to seven, and I hope to provide up-to-the-minute updates, but, you know, I lack initiative. We'll see.

First up was Control, a disappointingly by-the-numbers biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, played here by Sam Riley. On the verge of stardom, Curtis committed suicide at the age of 23, leaving behind a wife, a baby daughter, and a band that became New Order. We've already seen much of his life story, which consistutes much of the first half of the superior Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People. Despite expanding on that half-hour or so into feature length, director Anton Corbijn, working from a screenplay based on Curtis's wife's memiors, doesn't manage to give us any more insight into the moody singer.

Read the full review.