Wheaton native's 'Creative Control' looks at how we fill our voids

One could argue, as Wheaton native Benjamin Dickinson's second feature film “Creative Control” would, that technology began interfering with personal interactions ever since Hamilton Beach patented the first electric vibrator in 1902.

Dickinson meant “Creative Control” to be a satire on how modern New Yorkers, mostly a media PR executive named David (Dickinson), become so enamored with technology to fill their needy voids that they begin to confuse virtual reality with the real reality.

David lives with his yoga-instructor lover (Nora Zehetner), but secretly uses his new client's high-tech eyeware to construct a sexually compliant avatar of his cute co-worker (Alexia Rasmussen).

This is not “She,” the populist romance between a man and the Siri-siren on his cellphone. “Creative Control” has more in common with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's bold sex comedy “Don Jon,” about a young man who prefers Internet pornography to interacting with real human women.

Adam Newport-Berra's shimmering black-and-white camera work stuns the irises (and gives the colored images of David's naked avatar even greater pop).

In creating a social satire, Dickinson doesn't find much comic relief in “Creative Control.” His movie is dead serious stuff approaching a cautionary warning about our growing technology codependence.

And its prevailing emotion is a settled sense of sadness.

Reel life: 'Precious Mettle' is more sincere than most crime dramas