The central question in Control, the new biopic by Anton Corbijn, is whether Ian Curtis is capable of holding anything is reserve, or whether he holds far too much. Curtis, the troubled lead singer of Joy Division, would argue the former. “Don’t they know how hard this is for me?” he asks as he hears the clamor of a crowd demanding his presence in his first show back after a failed suicide attempt. “They keep wanting me to go further, and I don’t know if I can.” A riot erupts, but only after he closes himself down, unable to continue on stage.

The band’s performances highlights his exhaustion, with Curtis, played superbly by Sam Riley, throttling the microphone or hurling himself from it as he thrashes on stage. The band’s sound is otherworldly, spare and buzzing, and everyone who encounters it knows it will be a hit, from the club DJ who loudmouths himself into being their manager to Tony Wilson of Factory records, who inks their contract in his blood.

The film’s romances are also stretched thin and twitching. Curtis marries young and ends up with a wife and child he can’t seem to bear to share a room with. There’s a groupie who draws his eye, and they seduce one another as the rest of the band sleeps around them. She asks about his hometown. He says he’s wanted to leave for as long as he could remember. She asks about his wife. He says she loves it there.

It’s to the movie’s credit that both the wife and the mistress are favorably drawn. Both love a man who can’t choose between them. Even as he offers profusions of love and handwritten agonies, he remains veiled and distant, shutting himself into rooms to smoke cigarettes in front of blank pages. His lyrics lament the fragility of joy; the band’s bare sound and rising fame seem to isolate him further

There is illness too—epilepsy—and medications with myriad side effects and booze. But mostly there’s a young man who’s unhappy, until he finds a way to express that unhappiness. When that’s no longer enough, nothing is.