This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

There are some kernels of brilliance scattered amid the dead spaces of "Creative Control," a microbudgeted techno-drama.

In a near-future Brooklyn, marketing consultant David (played by Benjamin Dickinson, the film's director and co-writer) is assigned to create an ad campaign for Augmenta, a new form of augmented-reality glasses that will add a high-tech layer to the viewer's reality. After deciding to give a pair to a hip artist — in this case, the musician/comedian Reggie Watts, here wittily sending up his own image — David starts noodling with a pair himself.

While he ignores his flighty yoga-instructor girlfriend, Juliette (Nora Zehetner), David starts to create a sexy avatar based on Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen), the fashion-designer girlfriend of his best friend, Wim (Dan Gill), a philandering photographer. David and Sophie start crushing on each other, but it's nothing to the sparks David feels with her simulated version.

Shot in black-and-white, with some smartly strategic use of color, "Creative Control" has a sleek, polished look that belies its indie beginnings. Dickinson falls prey to some trite storytelling conventions, especially regarding urban hipsterdom, but he also makes some sharp points about the perils of letting technology fill voids in our flesh-and-blood lives.

'Creative Control'

Opens Friday, March 25, at the Tower Theatre; rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and drug use; 97 minutes.