Back to Black
Back to Black is a middling, surface-level biopic that ends up focussing on the least interesting parts of Amy Winehouse’s life.
Full Disclosure: I was a big fan of Amy Winehouse’s breakout Mark Ronson-produced 2006 album Back to Black (from which the movie takes its title). Her blend of 60s pop and vocal jazz influences with a modern twist was a revelation when it was first released, coming on the heels of a time when the charts were dominated by boy bands and pop princesses. But aside from the fact that she’s a member of the famous “27 club” of musicians that died too young, and that she battled addiction and substance abuse for years, I wasn’t that familiar with the details of her life. I’m also wary of musical biopics, however. While my love of music will always give me something to enjoy in the films, many of them have been done poorly over the years, whereas only a few have truly stood out..
Review
Unfortunately, Back to Black does not stand out positively, and actually comes out on the lower end of biopics of musicians that have been released in recent years. The biggest problem is that the movie seems scared to really delve into the difficulties of looking at a person who was an incredibly talented musician, but whose self-destructive tendencies ultimately doomed her. The filmmakers didn’t take positions on anything (was her dad a good or bad influence? etc.), but the film also wasn’t nuanced enough for this to seem like a choice to show the complexities of human nature.
The film really shied away from actually showing some of those destructive tendencies. There was very little drug use depicted, and there was only one quick shot of her leaning over a toilet to demonstrate her battle with bulimia. The script chose to talk about these things instead of showing us, but a movie isn’t supposed to be an essay. It’s like they didn’t want to depict Amy Winehouse in a bad light, but good biopics need to be honest about the people they’re portraying. What we’re left with for much of the movie are shots of her drinking (which, to be fair, does seem to have been her biggest vice), but nothing that really came across as shocking or dangerous.
If you enjoy watching a not-very interesting romance excruciatingly brought to life on the screen, then this is the movie for you.
This is all the more surprising considering that her family had no involvement in the making of the film. The movie spent some time showing us the effects of her addictions, but never ventured to put forward a theory as to “why” she was driven to those things. What we’re left with is a movie that choses to focus on her on-again, off-again relationship with her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, and frankly, their relationship is kind of boring…or at least, they didn’t show us any of the interesting parts. Likely because of Winehouse’s timeless voice and mature musical sensibilities, it’s easy to forget how young she was, and the fact that, like any young person, she was susceptible to intense infatuations and bad relationship choices. But aside from being co-enablers in their drug-fueled self-destruction, that’s about as far as the move went.
By the way, this is a biopic, so there aren’t really any spoilers below. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, feel free to keep reading without being worried that you’ll have some shocking new revelation spoiled for you. Unless, of course, you’ve never heard of Winehouse and are just reading this before wandering into a movie theater and choosing a movie at random.
Spoilers Ahead
Marisa Abela was actually pretty good as Winehouse, her depicting the singer’s stunned expression when she won the Grammy for Record of the Year.
Probably the most egregious example of “sparing the audience the gruesome details” is that the film even soft-plays her tragic death. The last images we see of Winehouse, she’s actually doing well after having gone through rehab, only for the movie to end, we cut “to black” and a chyron informs us that she “died of alcohol poisoning”. The filmmakers didn’t even want to show us any part of the tragic death of its tragic protagonist, or even any reaction to her death.
From a pure enjoyment perspective, and as a huge fan of music, I was also disappointed that the movie glossed over most of her career, to the point that if you blinked, you could have missed any key moments of her becoming one of the biggest musical stars in the world until suddenly, you’re watching a scene where she’s winning 5 Grammys in a scene near the end of the film.
From a director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, known for music videos and a screenwriter, Matt Greenhaigh, who has seemingly made a living out of writing biopics about musicians (Control about Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, and Nowhere Boy about John Lennon) the movie displayed very little love of music. Sure, there were lots of scenes with music being played or talked about, but nowhere did we get the sort of love letters to music that we’ve seen in certain scenes in other musical biopics (even if some have become a bit cliched), like Ray Charles and his girlfriend using the intensity of a song to play out their romantic squabbles, or Elton John finding such joy and escape in performing that it feels as though he and the audience can literally levitate.
I guess I should say that the movie wasn’t all bad – the performance by relative-newcomer Marisa Abela was quite good, both her acting and her singing. It’s probably impossible to ask any actress to display the subtle nuances that made Amy Winehouse’s voice so captivating, but in the times that Abela was called upon to sing, she did an admirable job. Lesley Manville was also excellent in a smaller role as Winehouse’s grandmother and “style icon” Cynthia.
Overall, for a movie about a musician whose singing was imbued with so much soul, much of this movie is unfortunately soulless.
Winehouse at the beginning of the movie, singing along with her father as her nana and others look on.
5 Quick Hits
Eddie Marsan, who plays Amy’s father Mitch, is normally a solid character actor. So, I’m not sure if it’s his fault or the fault of the movie that he didn’t seem to make any acting choices in his portrayal of the character. By the end of the film, I still had no sense of who the man was.
It was funny and kind of ironic that in the one scene where someone is asking Winehouse about her songwriting process, and getting a thoughtful answer in reply, they immediately launch into a song that she didn’t actually write - “Valerie”, which was a cover of a song by the band, The Zutons.
Winehouse is shown as having an old school jukebox in her house throughout the movie. I’m not sure if that’s true to real life or not, but I love it. Even though everything is available on Spotify these days, it would still be damn cool to get home and punch in a few buttons for an old school needle drop of some 60s Motown hit.
There was a bit of a through-line story with Tony Bennett, from Winehouse’s nana telling her how much she loved him, to her singing along to “Body and Soul” in her house, to one of the last scenes where it’s Bennett who announces her Grammy win for Record of the Year. But they dropped it there! Winehouse’s last recording was a duet with Bennett of “Body and Soul” for his Duets album! If you love music and storytelling, how do you not finish telling that story?
The movie also gives short shrift to Winehouse’s Jewish identity. There’s one brief scene at the beginning where her family are singing a traditional Jewish song, and one line where her nana asks her if the boy she’s dating is Jewish, but that’s really it. It’s like the moviemakers thought they needed to check off boxes in her biography, but didn’t really feel like exploring those aspect of her as a person.
