I went to university in Manchester in the early ’90s partly because of the quality of the degree to be gained, but mainly because of its reputation as the most important and exciting city in Britain (read, the world). Joy Division and Factory Records were the cornerstone on which that reputation was built, a decade earlier, so I was hugely anticipating this biopic of Ian Curtis.

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. For a start, the rough areas of Manchester and Salford (and there is a huge difference – as any Man City fan will tell you, there is only one team in Manchester) were tarted up to such an extent for the Commonwealth Games of 2002 that none of the old dock areas could be used, and large chunks of the film were shot in Nottingham. In fact, the film is hardly about Manchester, or the music scene there, but focuses more intently on lead singer Curtis’ relationship with wife Deborah, which is hardly surprising, as it is based on her memoirs, Touching From a Distance, but it presents a biased and one-dimensional view.

Deborah is played with sensitivity by Samantha Morton (who may almost have redeemed herself for the hugely forgettable River Queen) but she cannot have been as saintly or as blameless as depicted. Curtis is condemned for his affair with Belgian ingénue Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara), but the alternative – a damp terrace house in Macclesfield full of drying nappies – is hardly appealing, and it is no secret that he feels trapped; “It’s grey; it’s miserable. I wanted to escape it my whole life”. His mixture of shyness and a need to perform is central to many artistes, but his selfishness (as evidently seen by his widow left holding the baby) makes you question whether it is better not to know too much about your heroes.

Ian Curtis is uncannily embodied by Sam Riley. From his time as an alienated teenager lying on a narrow single bed listening to Bowie and experimenting with drugs, to his first trip to London or his ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ speech, he is every inch the tortured artist – compassionate enough to handle the misfits looking for work at the employment centre where he works, yet brazen enough to browbeat Tony Wilson (Craig Parkinson), Manchester media guru, into letting the band perform on his show. The adult-onset epilepsy is sympathetically handled, while making you glad of the relatively recent advances in medical science – one of the side affects of his epilepsy control drugs is listed nonchalantly by the doctor as ‘mental confusion’. It is when Riley is on stage as Curtis though, grasping the microphone like a shield, or dancing with the most memorable moves since Elvis shook his pelvis, that you really feel he is channelling Curtis.

The black and white format works perfectly for this milieu, as it is distilled to a tender purity. Director Anton Corbijn used to be a photographer for the NME and it shows in the reverent but never gauche scenes of the band playing live. Apparently the actors did all learn to play the music. Ian Curtis committed suicide when he was twenty-three on the eve of an American tour. Knowing that, the film was never likely to be jolly, and it is painful to watch him fall apart before your eyes; crying in bed not wanting to be touched; placing unbearable pressure upon himself; exhausted and confused; “It used to be so simple, now everyone hates me”; and all the time the lighting makes him look like a little boy.

The fact that it’s not all doom and gloom is due to fantastic scriptwriting and a stellar supporting cast. Joe Anderson as Peter Hook and Toby Kebbell as manager Rob Gretton are superb, displaying the laughter in the face of adversity that is peculiar to the North West of England. And that music! Sure, the clothes, houses and make-up take me back, but those drums; that guitar; that voice! The film ends, as of course you would expect, with ‘Walk in Silence’, and the welling up of emotion induced by that song is an incredible thing to take away from a cinema.—Kate Blackhurst