Creative Control

"Creative Control" (2016 release; 97 min.) brings the story of two couples. There is David and his girlfriend Juliette. David is working at an ad agency and is tasked with coming up with a good ad campaign for a new "augmented reality system" called Augmenta. David gets to try it out (by wearing regular-looking glasses) for some time. Juliette is a yoga instructor. It looks like their relationship isn't the greatest. Then there is Wim and Sophie. Wim is David's long-time buddy who hasn't the slightest problem with cheating on Sophie. David then hires Sophie to come work at the ad agency. At this point we're not even 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: first, this is the latest release from Amazon Studios, which is starting to spread its wings in the movie business quite nicely. Second, this is the Benjamin Dickinson show all the way: he stars (as David), directs, co-writes and co-produces this film, his first feature-length as a director. Dickinson sets the story in the not too distant future, where things still look quite familiar (certainly New York does), but technology has made continued progress. Yet the idea of an "augmented reality system" is of course not new. In fact, conceptually the movie is eerily similar to/reminiscent of that movie from the early 80s, "Brainstorm" (starring Christopher Walker and Natalie Wood, in her last film), where sex also was a big driver. Yes, I said sex. There is quite a bit of nudity in "Creative Control", so if that bothers you, you'd better pick another movie. "Creative Control" is shot in black and white, and given the slightly futuristic setting, it makes for a very stylish movie, and one of its better aspects. The other lead performers (Nora Zehetner as Juliette, Dan Gill as Wim, and Alexia Rasmussen as Sophie), all below the radar names, do their best to flesh out their characters, but in the end, the biggest failing of the movie is that it left me emotionally uninvolved and, frankly, I didn't feel invested in any of the movie. Plenty of style, but not enough substance.

"Creative Control" opened this weekend out of the blue without any pre-release buzz or advertising on a single screen here in Cincinnati. The Saturday matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great. Given the lack of star power and lack of marketing for this movie, I can't imagine that this will play long in theaters. If you are into movies heavy on relationship drama but here with a sci-fi twist, I'd encourage you to check out "Creative Control", be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually of DVD/Blu-ray and draw your own conclusions.

Nonsensical artsy-fartsy claptrap. That's time I'll never get back.

I'm guessing this is what one would call an artsy film, the whole movie is shot in black and white, which is actually quite well done, but the movie itself kind of goes overboard in the whole art project thing.

The story is actually quite simple, and not as hard to understand as the few trippy drug scenes imply, but it also isn't anything special, and really wasn't worth the 1,5 hour movie, as it could've fit into a 30min short.

A lot of scenes give the feeling someone went overboard with the filters, adding unnecessary sfx and 'noir' style effects to scenes that really didn't need them.

There is also quite a bit of dialogue that goes a little bit too far in its 'high/trippy' mindset. An actual quote; "I was looking into his eyes, and that's when i saw you, i saw you, and i realized that loving him was loving you was loving me, because we're all one"

This is where i stopped watching and started writing this review while leaving it on for the final 10 minutes. The end was actually quite good, but felt rushed, almost as if the budget ran out and they weren't able to film any substantial scenes for it. (probably because they used it all on unnecessary sfx earlier on.)

In the end i was left feeling like this would have been great for an art exhibition, and with that in mind it was kind of impressive i almost made it to the end, the camera-work and music quite good also, which is why i give it a 5/10, instead of anything lower.

The movie is not great, but the first impact is that it's a black and white hipster thing complaining about the hard lives of creative execs who drink and have too much cocaine and what it's doing to their souls, and it's not just that. The black and white is because a large portion of the movie is about an augmented reality interface and it does provide the color. The hipster thing... well, it's a hipster thing. You have the creative exec married with a yoga teacher who falls in love with his fashion photographer's wife - it's as annoying as it sounds - but in the end it is just an exploration on how the high octane top class technology adrenaline fueled culture is dissolving your identity. The problem is that the augmented technology is not that relevant to the subject of the movie and that most of the film is this guy making bad decision after bad decision.

It takes too long, but in the end I kind of enjoyed the whole movie. Maybe you will too.

The character studies are priceless . . . and remarkably on target

How to actually describe this?

A stylized rendition of uber fluff post millennial somethings immersed into the quasi emergent culture norm of this near future world, something like "Silicon Valley", extruded through a NY augmented reality enhanced art / ad agency scene mandrel.

But, that only barely covers the real description of what this is.

The character studies are priceless . . . and remarkably on target (at least in my perturbed opinion), maybe too close to home for some?

Visually, this is an art piece to be appreciated, but perhaps that is too distracting for some of the previous reviewers.

It's something of a twisted love story, but I had no difficulty at all following the various sub plot threads woven into this story.

No, not quite a 10, but certainly a well deserved 8.

Yes, this is a bit different, perhaps a bit of a risky tangent to have extrapolated upon, but for what it is, remarkably well done.

I don't mind when a production takes a bit of a risk, strays just a bit outside the box to deliver a potential future experience.

Some have suggested this will be soon forgotten as a trivial experiment in filmcraft.

I'm leaning in the other direction, more toward this maybe becoming a sort of future cult classic in its own context.

My humble suggestion . . . watch and absorb this, it will be worth the time spent.