Benjamin Dickinson and Alexia Rasmussen (Magnolia Pictures)
If the title card for the acclaimed British anthology series Black Mirror were to appear before writer-director-star Benjamin Dickinson’s new film Creative Control, it wouldn’t seem out of place. The film’s darkly comic vision of imminent technological developments and curdling human relationships feels of a piece with that series’ precise, discomfiting worldview.
That’s not entirely a compliment, though. What makes Black Mirror at its best truly special is the way it blends sociological observation and satire with deeply engaging emotional stories of relationships. Creative Control seems to strive for the same perspective, but its characters ultimately aren’t that interesting, and their relationships aren’t particularly complicated or surprising. The movie is handsomely shot in alluring black-and-white, and the dialogue brims with wit and imagination. If only the characters were worth caring about.
Dickinson—who directed music videos for LCD Soundsystem and Q-Tip before pursuing a feature film career—plays the wiry David, an overworked advertising executive charged with devising a campaign for Augmenta, an innovative brand of virtual-reality glasses. In the first scene, David walks into the office on Monday morning with a pounding headache, delivering a presentation before excusing himself to vomit in the restroom. He’s a hard-partying sort, with a live-in girlfriend Juliette (Nora Zehetner) who disapproves and a best friend Wim (Dan Gill) who eggs him on.
Wim’s girlfriend Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen) sets the plot in motion. She’s less uptight than Juliette, more free-spirited and fun to talk to, David thinks. After he gets a test pair of the Augmenta glasses, he finds himself constructing holographic simulations of her to ogle at and eventually fornicate with. He’s emotionally cheating—virtually, cheating.
The movie is most impressive when it explores the intricacies of Augmenta and the unnerving way that the company’s supporters—among them, superstar comedian and singer Reggie Watts, playing a gonzo version of himself—champion the device as inevitable and artistic, as if it’s going to inspire and change the world. Adam Newport-Berra’s immaculate cinematography and John Furgason’s haunting production design contribute to an anxious, nervy tone that carries the movie through some of its narrative cliches and emotional superficiality.
But flash and world-building doesn’t compensate for the story’s hollow center. The problem lies in part with the actors. While Dickinson deserves credit for juggling several hats on this production and for orchestrating a visually arresting near-dystopia, he falls short with the character of David. As written, he’s whiny, self-absorbed, and not particularly insightful. As performed, he’s perpetually stoic, with a grimace that’s not as compelling as Dickinson probably hopes. Zehetner has her moments as Juliette, a yoga teacher who yearns for more, but she’s largely viewed in relation to David, and as a result comes across as a two-dimensional nag. Rasmussen makes the strongest impression, and perhaps deserves to be the movie’s focal point. Yet Dickinson confines her character development to his character’s impressions of her.
Creative Control at times recalls Her, Spike Jonze’s moving 2013 portrait of love in a time of digital device-enforced isolation. The movies share thematic concerns: how digital technology can be abused like a drug, how real-life human relationships can be difficult to maintain when less challenging virtual ones beckon, how gadgets take away happiness as much as they give it. But Her has a deeply felt performance from Joaquin Phoenix, and develops its female lead, who’s never even seen as a physical presence, into a fully-realized being. Creative Control seems more interested in skimming the surface of love-triangle conventions, only penetrating that surface in isolated sequences. When it does, the effect is captivating. When it doesn’t, you’re left with a vision of the future as attractive on the surface as it is hollow on the inside.
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Creative Control
Directed by Benjamin Dickinson
Written by Micah Bloomberg and Benjamin Dickinson
Benjamin Dickinson, Nora Zehetner, Dan Gill
Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and drug use
96 minutes
Opens today at E Street Landmark Cinema.
