The film starts off strong, giving you a lovely peek into Amy's relationship with her nan, her family and her love for music and performing in pubs, showing a young vulnerable girl who has a great talent and a true sense of girl power. You do get a senae of who Amy really was. She feels real and believable, with beautiful vocals that come close to matching the real Amy.
However, when it comes to the story, it's not doing a good job taking you on a journey with Amy. The film starts to lose track of time and the passing of time fairly quickly. Amy's discography and single releases could have helped to keep track of time, but the makers chose to link the songs to the film narrative rather than featuring them in the order in which they were released. This makes it difficult to follow when her actual break through happens. For example, Valerie appears a lot earlier in the film than expected as we hadn't seen enough of the success of her Back to Black album, which was released in 2006. Most of the Back to black singles were released before Valerie. The Valerie cover was released in October 2007. The film even claims that Blake got back together with Amy after hearing Valerie in a pub and discussing Amy's success with a friend, but she and Blake got married 5 months before Valerie was released. Unnecessary error, as they could have been listening to any song from Back to black.
The order of the songs may not be that important to some, but ultimately what happens in the film is that you don't really get a sense of the impact of Amy's music and legacy. The film always stays close to Amy, which is deliberate of course, and it does help you focus on how she copes with her troubles, the loss of her nan, her addictions, her relationship with Blake, her relationship with the paparazzi, but we don't see enough of Amy in the world. We're sticking too close to Amy. Especially if you consider that Amy toured the back to black album for almost five years, we should have seen a lot more of how she rose to fame and how it changed her over time. The film almost makes it seem like all of Amy's troubles revolve around her relationship with Blake, but there is a lot more to it and we could have seen more impact of her father's influence, the impact of the paparazzi, her constant touring and performing, the self-harm, etc, in doing so not painting a full or realistic picture of Amy's life.
Back to the positive: it's a lovely portrait of a part of Amy, focusing mainly on her relationship with Blake. You feel for the girl and she does feel real and layered. The songs are a real tribute to Amy with beautiful vocals and a great mix of Amy's original recordings and the film's soundtrack. If you love her songs, then you should go see it just to enjoy them again, but you do need to accept the disorganised discography.
However, when it comes to the story, it's not doing a good job taking you on a journey with Amy. The film starts to lose track of time and the passing of time fairly quickly. Amy's discography and single releases could have helped to keep track of time, but the makers chose to link the songs to the film narrative rather than featuring them in the order in which they were released. This makes it difficult to follow when her actual break through happens. For example, Valerie appears a lot earlier in the film than expected as we hadn't seen enough of the success of her Back to Black album, which was released in 2006. Most of the Back to black singles were released before Valerie. The Valerie cover was released in October 2007. The film even claims that Blake got back together with Amy after hearing Valerie in a pub and discussing Amy's success with a friend, but she and Blake got married 5 months before Valerie was released. Unnecessary error, as they could have been listening to any song from Back to black.
The order of the songs may not be that important to some, but ultimately what happens in the film is that you don't really get a sense of the impact of Amy's music and legacy. The film always stays close to Amy, which is deliberate of course, and it does help you focus on how she copes with her troubles, the loss of her nan, her addictions, her relationship with Blake, her relationship with the paparazzi, but we don't see enough of Amy in the world. We're sticking too close to Amy. Especially if you consider that Amy toured the back to black album for almost five years, we should have seen a lot more of how she rose to fame and how it changed her over time. The film almost makes it seem like all of Amy's troubles revolve around her relationship with Blake, but there is a lot more to it and we could have seen more impact of her father's influence, the impact of the paparazzi, her constant touring and performing, the self-harm, etc, in doing so not painting a full or realistic picture of Amy's life.
Back to the positive: it's a lovely portrait of a part of Amy, focusing mainly on her relationship with Blake. You feel for the girl and she does feel real and layered. The songs are a real tribute to Amy with beautiful vocals and a great mix of Amy's original recordings and the film's soundtrack. If you love her songs, then you should go see it just to enjoy them again, but you do need to accept the disorganised discography.