Back To Black
★★★
In cinemas
Workmanlike but occasionally sparkling biopic
Amy Winehouse’s formidable talent made her a star, but the songs on the album that gives this movie its title were written and recorded in the white heat of a tempestuous relationship that also made her a tabloid fixture. Consequently, as much as the filmmakers stress how they wanted to tell the singer’s story through her music, the more troublesome aspects of her short life can’t be ignored.
Marisa Abela portrays Amy as a driven figure resisting music biz attempts to package her into something more instantly sellable (“I ain’t no fuckin’ Spice Girl,” she declares early on), yet that single-mindedness arguably contributed to the drama of her private life. Director Sam Taylor-johnson delivers snapshots of Winehouse’s on-off romance with bad-boy beau and future husband Blake Fielder-civil romance, realism, and wit in a story that’s both complex and intriguing. Howard’s eye for detail is strong, as is his sense of humour and his ability to seek out the emotional aspects of a story. One hopes for more of this sort of thing in the future. David Quantick (Jack O’connell) as jumpingoff points for the creation of the likes of Rehab, Love Is A Losing Game and Back To Black itself, without any in-depth examination of her subject.
Writer Matt Greenhaigh has form in this area of filmmaking, having provided screenplays for biopics of Lennon (Nowhere Boy, also directed by Taylor-johnson) and Ian Curtis (Control), but his portrait of Winehouse seems less considered, more superficial. The script is littered with clunky, exposition-serving dialogue that all too often stumbles into cliché, while big-name support from Eddie Marsan and Lesley Manville as the singer’s dad and grandmother only intermittently conveys the concern her family has as she threatens to careen off the rails.
That said, Abela is magnificent in the lead role; her nuanced approximations of Winehouse’s singing voice impress in a series of wellstaged musical sequences, second only to the subtlety she brings to the offstage Amy, spinning between headstrong and vulnerable. It’s a genuinely affecting, awards-magnet performance that ultimately deserves a better film. Terry Staunton