Short Takes

CONTROL Covering the final years of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis’ brief life, music photographer Anton Corbijn’s directorial debut traces its subject from his teen years obsessing over Bowie records to his troubled relationship with wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) to his battles with depression and epilepsy to his 1980 suicide. Unlike most rock biopics—which try to impose themes, motives and Behind the Music inanities onto popular music’s mercurial talents—Control strips away Curtis’ tragic-deity status. Shot in demythologizing black-and-white, Corbijn’s film eschews a moment-by-moment documentation of Joy Division’s rise and fall, instead offering a moody snapshot of Curtis’ fragile mental state via newcomer Sam Riley. Beyond resembling the singer, Riley channels Curtis’ essence, resulting in a characterization that feels appropriately under-formed. Control never lets you forget that Curtis was only 23 when he took his own life; the Ian we see here is a well-meaning work in progress, a perpetually flailing little boy. Curtis never could have imagined that almost 30 years after his death anyone would bother making a film about what he perceived as his miserable existence. Control honors its subject’s eternal self-doubt by honing in on that truth and leaving the legend to others. —Tim Grierson (Opens Friday at the Belcourt)

SEMI-PRO Better than Blades of Glory, which wasn’t nearly as good as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which was a little better than Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was almost as funny as Old School, which was better than everything else Will Ferrell had done up to that point. This is what it’s all come down to with Ferrell: grading his movies in various shades of enh, each one blending into the next till they’re all one giant gray blob of feh. Which sells short the semi-funny Semi-Pro—essentially Major League clad in 1970s short-shorts and topped with a few ’fros for fun, as Ferrell’s washed-up one-hit blunder tries to get his woeful Flint Tropics into the NBA before the ABA vanishes out of existence. Still, you seen one Will Ferrell sports comedy, you’re good. What distinguishes this one from the others: great characters, among them Woody Harrelson’s washed-up vet seeking redemption and romance, Andre Benjamin’s blustering baller with NBA aspirations and Andrew Daly’s play-by-play man. Funny in spots, but the game’s four quarters—or two too many. —Robert Wilonsky (Opens Friday)

PENELOPE “A Fairytale Like No Other”? Penelope’s influences are right up front—starting with the Tim Burton production design (overstocking each frame with curios) and all that Amélie music-box wistfulness tinkling about. The film’s titular heroine (Christina Ricci) is born into money, but thanks to a hex brought on by a distant ancestor’s snobbery, she’s accursed with a sow’s snout (like a prettier breed of The Twilight Zone’s pig people). Director Mark Palansky starts by whisking us through a “The Story Until Now” sequence, and the pace doesn’t slacken once this little piggy ventures off her family estate into the hybrid London-New York-Belle Epoque beyond, where she experiences life and love (with the impeccably scruffy James McAvoy, ready to front some cruddy sparkle-and-fade NME-championed band). Released fully two years after shooting, the film (a pet project of co-producer Reese Witherspoon, who has a supporting role) has been trimmed to the quick. But Ricci is appealingly human, and the movie’s acknowledgement of the importance of female friendship is faintly touching. The social function of fables has long switched from cautionary chiding to coddling self-esteem, hence the movie’s moral: Self-acceptance brings out inner beauty. It’s not quite that easy, but it’s also not a bad lie to buy. —Nick Pinkerton (Opens Friday)