Creative Control (2015) User Reviews (15)

Relationship drama with sci-fi twist: plenty of style, not enough substance

[paul-allaer · 6/10 · 19 March 2016]

"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.

Artsy?

[pepetiebosch · 5/10 · 2 May 2016]

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 film promised, that promised

[Andres-Camara · 4/10 · 30 December 2017]

I do not know why there is that tendency lately to revile technology. Cinema has always reviled everything that was new and now touches technology. I do not see this film as a criticism of a certain kind of people, I think it aims to criticize technology and the people who use it. The worst is that it proposes that its massive use will only be sexual.

I think it's a boring movie. Sex, drugs and alcohol are most of the time. While we live in a society with a great loss of values, I do not think it's how this movie puts it. In the end, the film manages to be basically what criticizes.

It has enough interpretations. There is none that stands out and none that is not well.

A film in black and white that contrasts with so much technology, for what? I would like the director to explain it to me. I do not think it contributes anything.

It has many visual effects, which are very simple after all. But so badly used that only gets close-ups with an effect in front.

The director does not know what is bored, what does not progress. He does not know how to put the camera. Every now and then he leaves the camera far from the action and takes you out completely.

Luckily the lot is not this

Couldn't Care About the Characters Here

[larrys3 · 3/10 · 17 June 2016]

There's plenty of sex, drugs, nudity, explicit language, and Augmented Reality fantasies here, but if you're looking for any characters you can care about you may very well come up empty handed. Shot in black-and- white, to be fair there is some humor and satire that emerges every so often, but it never stays on a steady enough path to sustain itself.

Benjamin Dickinson stars here as David, as he also directed the movie and co-wrote the screenplay with Micah Bloomberg, an advertising exec who wins the Augmenta account for his agency. They specialize in Augmented Reality glasses and David volunteers to try out the product so he can prepare his marketing campaign. However, he begins to find the trips into Augmented Reality much preferable to his fast crumbling personal life.

All in all, there's a few things to like here but they're outweighed by pretentious and unlikable characters, so that by the end of the movie I really didn't care what happened to any of them.

Like eating a plain croissant for dinner

[MellyMelfy · 2 December 2019]

No substance and poor performances left me feeling very unsatisfied. The film tries too hard be artsy, but falls short on even being edgy enough to be pretentious. A great example of poor writing, poor direction and poor execution by the actors. I really wanted to give this film a fair shot, was actually looking forward to seeing it, but it just fell so short on so many levels.

Hip Garb and Hairstyles Can't Mask Familiar Story

[LeonLouisRicci · 6/10 · 9 June 2016]

Artsy Musings are what inhabits this "Selfie" Film, Filmed in Black and White (of course). Sterility is Everywhere as is that Oldie but Goodie, Sex. These "Techies" and Nerds, no matter how Outrageous Their Hairstyles or Wardrobe, are still just like Everyone Else.

Multitasking can't Mask the Fact that Mostly on the Mind is a "Bit of the ole' in and out." It all comes down to that when all's Said and Done. The Movie is Obsessed with the Thing. Just like the Past Generations of Young People these People try so hard to Distance Themselves.

It's all Slick Surface, Shiny and Reflective. Even the City Streets seem to have been Vacuumed of the Vile Stench and Debris. Everyone in the Picture is Perfectly Coiffed, Manicured, and ready for Their Inumerous Close-Ups.

Even though the Story is about High-Tech and things that "Everyday People" find Frighteningly Frustrating, it somehow seems Mundane. The Commercial Shoot, the Yoga Classes, and Board Room Meetings contain Dialog that might well be in a Foreign Language, it's Numbed Down for the Masses.

You might Try Hard, in vain, to Understand anything Reggie Watts or the Yoga Instructor is saying in Their Extended Dialog Scenes. It all makes about as much Sense as an Acid Trip.

Speaking of Drugs, there are Plenty Consumed. In almost Every Scene something is being Smoked, Snorted, Popped, and Drank. Party On.

The Virtual Reality of the "Augmenta" Glasses is, of course, just like a Drug as Our Protagonist (Writer-Director-Actor, Multitasker, Benjamin Dickinson) gets so "Turned On" by wearing the "X-Ray Specs" that at times He can't separate the Experience from Reality (big surprise).

Overall, this Indie is Worth a Watch for the Artsy Way it Displays its rather Pedestrian Postmodern Philosophy, but in the End, there really isn't Anything Post-Modern about it. It just Appears so, Dressed-Up in Hip Garb and Hairstyles.

wtf?

[cerabus-647-658878 · 3/10 · 14 April 2016]

OK, maybe I'm old. Maybe I'm outa touch with whats hip and cool.... But this movie makes no sense at all ... Is it film noir? is it a retrospect on hip newyork life? Is it some drug addled ideal of what is going on in modern life?

Sorry, it makes no sense at all. its a piece of junk that is destined to be forgotten as soon as the players in it go back to their 711 jobs.

no story to understand really, just some flacky guy wandering from scene to scene holding his dick most of the time and screwing up a relationship with a cool chick who tries to keep her job and life together while he aimlessly plays with augmented reality glasses.

Not worth a watch really .. i watched it as i wrote this , so that tells you something right there .. if it was any good i would have watched it and then said something ..

You have to slog through it before you dig it

[siderite · 7/10 · 10 September 2018]

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.

Mediocre hipster-drama stuffed with tech-nonsense

[knutslie · 1/10 · 21 January 2017]

Contains spoilers!

This movie is about a marketing guy who gets to borrow augmented reality glasses from an inventor so that his company can market them. Also, he is secretly in love with his friend's girlfriend. His guy friend is a photographer and the girl works for his company. Marketing guy lives with another girl who is a yoga teacher.

So, marketing guy starts experimenting with the augmented reality glasses and creates a digital copy of his secret crush, which ultimately leads to problems with his yoga teacher girlfriend and his photographer friend. Meh, the drama.

Technically, the movie is well made, except they forgot to filter the background noise from some of the scenes.

The dialogues between the main character's are tiresome, pretentious and boring. The character's are boring or cliché. Any attempt at satire is ruined by too serious and melodramatic tone. The augmented reality glasses side of the story is unimaginative and cliché. This tech- nonsense-drama is obviously a failed attempt at mimicking 'Her' (2013).

This movie was a complete waste of time.

Nonsensical, artsy-farts claptrap.

[whazzupskippy · 2/10 · 22 August 2021]

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

Speculative Fiction for nerds

[erikstuborn · 8/10 · 5 May 2016]

An interesting, and different, black comedy that provides an interesting and unprecedented view of how future technologies will affect all human relationships: friendship, emotional relationships, work relationships... in a kind of tribute to the most futuristic visions of Jacques Tati in "Mon Oncle" or "Play Time', also the story has dyes from Philip K. Dick's sharpness, without forgetting —as a black comedy— the touch of Woody Allen's anticipation style, although the protagonist is nailed to Nanni Moretti...

The movie keeps the tension, creates perfectly chained situations and solves with good arts a script that could have fallen a hundred different places. The atmosphere and aesthetics of the film are noteworthy, with its mild anachronistic touch, and has no cracks in its approach of frightening (and suggestive at once) speculative fiction while being an American comedy about thirtysomething people and their usual problems: love, job, friends, addictions, unfulfilled desires and the reality that —always— imposes itself (problems that, apparently, are the same in the future).

A striking film for those interested in Speculative Fiction.

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

[charles000 · 8/10 · 28 May 2016]

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.

Move over, Rick Springfield, this is "Jessie's Girl" on steroids

[rooprect · 8/10 · 27 December 2019]

Right up front, to save you the 5 mins of reading my review (if not the 97 mins of this movie) let me say this is an artsy flick. So if the phrase "artsy flick" scares you then you probably won't enjoy this movie. But at the same time it's not annoyingly artsy; it isn't like Andy Worhol's 8 hour movie consisting of 1 still camera shot of the Empire State Building. So don't run away screaming just yet.

I'll get to the actual review in a sec. But first let me throw out a few directors' names which might give you an idea of what to expect if you decide to watch this movie. Jim Jarmusch. Krzysztof Kieslowski. Béla Tarr. Darren Aronofsky. And a director whom I suspect was overtly alluded to in this film because one of the main characters, a photographer/director, happens to be named "Wim", uh Wim Wenders. If you're a fan of any of these directors then read on. If you've never heard of them that's ok, maybe this film will inspire you to check them out.

"Creative Control" is broadly a science fiction story. But don't expect spaceships, robots and sexy blue aliens. Instead, much like Wim Wenders's "Until the End of the World" or "Million Dollar Hotel" or "Promised Land", this movie is set in an ambiguously familiar future--it could be 5 years from now or it could be 50 years--with the idea of presenting a story that is NOT in the present, so it immediately immerses us in a fantasy setting, even though these are real people in real situations like you & I might be experiencing today. It's set in a contemporary looking New York City, except that iphones are totally clear and computers look like sheets of plexiglass. The plot is about a futuristic device, "Augmented Reality glasses", which give the wearer access to real-time technological tools in everyday life.

For example, the minute you look at someone, their face is instantly mapped into a database, and that database can be used to create artificial characters who are projected into your living space. Ah, do you see where this is going? Yes--you can create virtual characters who look exactly like people you know.

The main character, "David" (played by writer/director Benjamin Dickinson himself) gets his hands on a pair of these magic glasses and he proceeds to do exactly what you or I would probably do; that is, he creates a fantasy character who looks exactly like the chick he secretly has a crush on. And this chick ("Sophia") happens to be--if you caught the reference in my title--his best friend's girlfriend. As he gets deeper into this fantasyscape, which blends into his real life because he can see her and interact with her whenever he puts on the glasses, David rapidly loses his sense of reality. And it doesn't help that he's taking a cocktail of mind-altering medication as if they're m&ms.

If you find this concept interesting then you'll grasp the beauty of this flick, no need for spaceships and sexy blue aliens. This film presents us with the very real social problem we are facing today: what happens when we become addicted to technology in a way that redefines our lives and relationships? As such, this "scifi" is not as far-fetched as you may think, and that's what gives it power. If you're paying attention, this movie can really get under your skin.

That's all I'll say about the story. But I wanted to touch on some technical merits of this film. First of all, the soundtrack is fantastic. It features a lot of classical pieces as well as modern beats, and all of the pieces are powerful and moving. Similarly the cinematography and camera work is very polished and professional, with lots of smooth, long shots reminiscent of Orson Welles or Hitchcock's meticulous attention to detail. "Creative Control" is in black & white but there are some very significant elements of color which will make you smack your forehead and say "ah now I understand why the movie is in black & white." And lastly I have to say the acting is terrific with every character presenting a very memorable personality. Love it or hate it, you have to admit that this is a very carefully planned film.

If my wordy review didn't scare you off, I think you should give this movie a shot. Even though not a lot happens, there's a lot going on. Huh? Watch the movie and maybe that'll make sense.

Interesting character development

[deepblue501 · 8/10 · 29 August 2018]

I would whole-heartedly disagree with most user reviews on here. This movie, whilst dealing with a modern theme and millenial-style behavior, does in fact deal with quite some important matters. First of all, it has great character development. All the main characters are perfectly realistic and believable, even though not all of them are deeply refined. But they are not shallow at all (except for Sophie perhaps). Secondly, this drama is about relationship difficulties in a modern age where technology is not only taking up our time but significantly interefering with human relationships. And the Augmenta reality system is a realistic tool to gently portray these likely future tendencies. The movie is never boring and the dialogues are good. An interesting drama about how technology increasingly shapes and devestates our lives.

Augmented reality confuses several man-woman couples. Amazon Original.

[TxMike · 22 April 2018]

I was pretty much bored so I went onto our Amazon Prime account to see what was available. This movie attracted my attention for its plot, set in the near future, a group in New York are working on a novel augmented reality project.

I must admit the first half of it pretty well captured my attention but as the story developed it turns into familiar plot lines, a man in a relationship is half satisfied, and half satisfied with work, so he drinks too much and experiments with drugs too much. So we have to put up with several relationships in disarray.

Somewhat entertaining but I could not recommend it.