Back to Black review: Amy Winehouse biopic is a big no, no, no

Back to Black, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s limp, trite Amy Winehouse biopic, is about as good as you’d expect from the director of Fifty Shades of Grey. In other words, it’s a losing game from the off.

How could anyone convey the essence, charisma, and tragedy of Amy Winehouse? In 2015, Asif Kapadia somehow found a way with Amy, a stunning documentary that captured a compassionate, unflinchingly truthful image of a woman idolized and brutalized from her emergence to the moment she died.

It should have been the final word, an essential supplement to her timeless discography. But her estate — including her father Mitch, an outspoken critic of that Oscar-winning feature — gave the go-ahead on a movie chronicling her rise and fall. But this dramatically inept take on Winehouse feels like the antithesis of what the doc sought to achieve: this is a glossy, surface-level film that doesn’t seem to understand the life it’s rummaging around in.

There’s one scene that sums the whole thing up: Blake Fielder-Civil (played by Jack O’Connell) hands her a post-wedding gift, a ring box filled with crack cocaine, which she opens like Pulp Fiction’s radiant briefcase. It’s an icky, fictitious flourish to illustrate her battle with substance abuse, and it raises a larger question: what was the point of any of this?

Back to Black is tiresome from the start

The opening scenes of Back to Black are warm as they are fraught, with Amy (Marisa Abela) smiling and reminiscing with her nan (Leslie Manville) before singing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ with her dad (Eddie Marsan). This is just one half of a broken home, though, with Amy returning to her mum (Juliet Cowan) alone and piecing together the lyrics of ‘What Is It About Men.’

Everything changes when a record label listens to her demo, but whether it’s unwanted fame, booze, drugs, her “toxic” relationship with Blake, or the pressure to create music without living her songs first, her life starts to spiral as she becomes a world-adored icon.

Taylor-Johnson, working off Matt Greenhalgh’s script, zips through Winehouse’s life like a disordered Wikipedia article, one that isn’t particularly rich in detail. For example, Mark Ronson never appears but gets name-dropped like an MCU character, and her iconic Grammys win — maybe one of the greatest award ceremony moments of all time — omits her mention of Blake in the speech, her hilarious reaction to Justin Timberlake’s ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’, and extraordinarily fails to evoke any borrowed emotion.

But don’t worry, they include her favorite cocktail: a Rickstasy, a mega-cocktail with Southern Comfort, vodka, Baileys, and banana liqueur. “I’m pissed just thinking about it,” Blake quips.

That’s because Black to Black’s priority is much like the media’s: the heartbreaking trajectory of Winehouse’s career, rather than the person herself, using easy characterizations and occasionally disrespectful storytelling shorthand (one scene bears alarming resemblance to Ana de Armas’ Blonde) as it trods haphazardly through her story.

Marisa Abela isn’t the main problem

Two things can be true: Abela is a talented singer, but her scat-mimicking of Winehouse’s voice — much like buskers straining their voice to sound like her — is grating. She’s a personable actress, but everything about her portrayal is tarnished by knowing who she’s meant to be. A clip of her singing understandably went viral, and while it’s an accurate representation of what watching the movie feels like, the problem with the film lies in its radioactive conception, not the star who was cursed at the point of casting.

Even O’Connell’s Blake, which is basically Skins’ Cook if he was written by Guy Ritchie, is a strong presence, and he has effective chemistry with Abela — until you remember who they’re playing, and any credit in their performances is soured. Marsan’s Mitch is a devout cockney daddy, and it’s a much kinder view of him compared to the doc (it smacks of his approval, despite Taylor-Johnson’s assurances he didn’t have any involvement).

From a pure craft perspective, the film is handsomely shot by Polly Morgan (unsurprising, given her past work on The Woman King), small touches in production design accurately tap into the mid-noughties, and the soundtrack is a veritable list of bangers: Minnie Riperton’s ‘Les Fleurs’, The Libertines’ ‘Don’t Look Back Into the Sun’, and Winehouse chart-toppers. But its jukebox sensibilities leave a bad taste; it could have been an opportunity to layer and showcase her lesser-listened-to tracks, but this pop biopic fundamentally isn’t interested in looking deeper.

Back to Black review: 1/5

Back to Black is Amy Winehouse’s Bohemian Rhapsody, but worse; it’s not unwatchable, but there’s no good reason to watch it either.

Back to Black hits UK cinemas on April 12, before its release in the US on May 17. Find out what other new movies you should be watching this month.