Winehouse biopic dwells on talent rather than tragedy
Amy Winehouse gets the biopic treatment in Back to Black, a largely celebratory portrait of the troubled London soul singer, who died from alcohol poisoning in 2011, aged just 27.
Directed by Sam Taylorjohnson, the film paints Winehouse (played by newcomer Marisa Abela) as a supremely talented artist whose raw and honest lyrics reflected the raw and honest way she lived her life.
The film skips quickly through both her discovery and the release of her debut album Frank, filtering the period through her loving relationship with her nan, Cynthia Winehouse (Lesley Manville), a former jazz singer who inspired her retro look and sound even more than her close yet contentious relationship with her limelight-loving dad Mitch (Eddie Marsan).
As the film has it, it’s her initial disillusionment with the music industry that drives Amy into the arms of Blake Fieldercivil, the drug-guzzling future husband frequently demonised as the reason for her downfall.
Played with roguish charm by Jack O’connell, Blake’s a laddish wideboy who doesn’t so much gaslight Winehouse as function as a conduit for her own addictive personality.
At the centre of it all, Abela’s generous performance captures Winehouse’s youthful vitality, and she acquits herself well during the performance scenes. But the film smooths off a lot of Winehouse’s rough edges and the film’s determination to follow her stated musical mantra of “making something good out of something bad” turns her life story into an oddly feelgood
celebration of her talent that never quite gets under her skin.
Civil War (15) JJJ
Alex Garland’s new dystopian thriller Civil War revolves around a group of journalists chasing an interview with the US President as secessionist troops close in on Washington (Nick Offerman cameos as the embattled leader). The film drops us into the action as if we’re tuning into a news report of a conflict that’s been running for so long explainers are no longer offered, just grim
images of the ongoing attrition, dutifully recorded, but lacking the power to change anything.
Such detachment reflects the professional mindset of its protagonists, especially photographer Lee (an excellent Kirsten Dunst) and her fellow Reuters stringer Joel (Wagner Moura). Both are seasoned war reporters who have borne witness to atrocities in combat zones around the globe, so the irony isn’t lost on them that they’re now covering a divisive conflict in their own country for the rest of the world to consume with similar indifference.