Control

A biopic about a band from Manchester, which is getting serious attention from around the world, starting with an award at Cannes, is maybe more than you might expect. Joy Division is hardly a name on everyone's lips. And films made by ex-music video directors about yet another load of rockers rarely raise eyebrows. So why is this different?

For non-initiates, Joy Division was a post-punk Manchester band of throbbing guitars and dark, doom-laden lyrics. Recognition in the music biz, especially by other musicians, was perhaps even greater after the death of lead singer, Ian Curtis. Control covers a period from his schooldays to his suicide in 1980, aged 23. It is based on Touching From A Distance, the book written by his widow, Deborah.

The film uses Curtis's love of poetry, as well as the more familiar songs-that-tell-a-story device, to provide a scant insight into the music. "I wish I were a Warhol silkscreen, hanging on the wall," he muses. But what is dealt with in much more detail is his growing sense of isolation, coping with epilepsy as the pressures of touring build up and the distraught domestic relations he is embroiled in with wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) and romantic-interest-from-afar Annik (Alexandra Maria Lara).

"It's like it's not happening to me, but someone pretending to be me. Someone dressed in my skin," he says.

In a telling scene when he is under hypnosis, the camera revolves around his head as we hear voices speaking to him ("Ian, let me in, love. There's room to talk"). Also, there are his responsibilities as husband and father, a mistress who is in love with him, a band and fan following who want more than he can give. From a Warholian, carefree screen dream of youth, he has arrived at a place where he doesn't want to be. Drugs and their side effects are no longer a schoolboy's recreational laugh. Prescription bottles grip with morbid fascination. And the knowledge that doctors don't have a cure.

The film carries you away with blistering intensity. Relative newcomer Sam Riley plays Curtis with alarming energy and, with Morton, it's not what she says but what is going through her mind, containing her expressiveness for the camera, rather than thrusting it upon us. We want to cry inside for her character. As a feat of interiorisation, this performance makes her a contender for Meryl Streep’s crown.

The supporting cast comes through with believability and sincerity, sparkling with well-honed contrasts. Toby Kebbell’s fast-talking manager Rob lifts us out of the depressive mood with wisecracks enough to make legless monkeys jump.

"Where's my £20?" asks a hapless stand-in, as Rob deals with an emergency.

"In my fuck-off pocket!" he barks back.

Craig Parkinson is record producer and late TV presenter Tony Wilson (to whom the opening screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival was dedicated). He demonstrates fine shades of teeth-gritting tolerance, explaining to the band, seconds before their first live TV show: yes, “large dog's cock” counts as swearing and would mean the broadcast is pulled.

Established Romanian actress, Alexandra Maria Lara, succeeds in making Annik far more than the two-dimensional bit of fluff that would have been an easy course. As potential home breaker, it is tempting to hate her, yet her character is shown with the intellectual appreciation and chemistry that Debbie can no longer provide.

Morton, in the Q&A after the Edinburgh premiere, links the film to Saturday Night And Sunday Morning. It is the kitchen sink, downtrodden existence that her character inhabits. Cinematography is also reminiscent of this period, with its careful black-and-white observation of working class streets. In one of the most emotional moments of the film, Debbie advances from right of screen, where she is frequently placed, towards Ian to confront him over his infidelity. Short bursts of tortured, repressed rage escape her lips. Eventually she crowds him into the tiny left hand portion of the picture. His world has become restricted, with nowhere to turn. Compare these shots with the use of horizontal space, as he comes out of the hospital after Debbie has given birth: a long closed corridor being the only other thing in frame. Or the straight main road across the screen when band members take a foaming Curtis out of the car at night - epilepsy is discovered just as they are fast tracking to fame. Director Anton Corbijn is typically modest. "I really wanted you to look at the actors on the screen and only afterwards at the look of the film."

While Ian, in Debbie's eyes, might be the licentious, “angry young man” of social realism, the scenes from which she is absent show another side: the world experienced by her husband (a reference in the film likens his isolation to Brando's Kurtz in Apocalypse Now).

"And we would go on as though nothing was wrong. And hide from these days we remained all alone."

Although the film has a driving energy that takes your breath away, it drifts a little towards its tragic conclusion. We know the ending and it is a case of waiting for it to happen. And although it features plenty of excellent Joy Division tracks, any music biopic will never be good enough, or accurate enough, for some fans.

Fortunately this is not just for music fans, but for serious filmgoers as well. It careers in a tightly controlled arc, where music biopic meets cinematic excellence. "Some people visit the past for sentimental reasons," says Corbijn. "Some people visit the past to understand the present better." Control is not in the sentimental exercise category.