Amy Winehouse's life was inherently dramatic. This film by Sam Taylor-Johnson starts, however, rather quietly in her teenage years. So there's no insight into her earlier childhood (she apparently had a flair for maths), the development of her musical gifts or how she started recording and got gigs at the Dublin Castle pub, Camden Town, and Ronnie Scott's in Soho. Some background information on the screen might have been helpful.
Though the film centres on songs on the eponymous "Back to Black" album, I found their lyrics muffled on the sound track and very hard to follow, except on "Rehab" and "Valerie". There's no insight, either, into the background of the latter, which was a cover version; as a result its lyrics, unusually, don't reflect Amy's personal experience.
The portrayal of her husband Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) seems controversial; some critics have found it too sympathetic. The Winehouse family blamed him for introducing her to heroin and she said that their marriage was based on doing drugs. The film, however, suggests that she was more dangerous for him.
Positively, Marisa Abela is spectacular as Amy; she makes her seem real and does full justice to a number of her songs. The film quite subtly shows us Amy's Jewish family and close relationship with both her father, Mitch (Eddie Marsan), and especially her grandmother, Cynthia (Lesley Manville). It makes clear her sophisticated musical tastes, too. She had a strong need to live her songs. In one brief scene she looks and sounds touchingly kind and natural, not a "celebrity".
Appropriately, "arty" effects are avoided. There's just one very striking visual touch, I think: a face half-reflected in a mirror. Scenes shot after dark might recall film noir, though I was a bit disappointed by the limited outside scenes in Camden Town. It would have been interesting to follow Amy's moves in different parts of the district.
We see her, more than once, being chased through the streets. Perhaps these scenes unavoidably recall another woman with a tempestuous life who died very sadly early.
I think this film is uneven but never less than interesting.
Though the film centres on songs on the eponymous "Back to Black" album, I found their lyrics muffled on the sound track and very hard to follow, except on "Rehab" and "Valerie". There's no insight, either, into the background of the latter, which was a cover version; as a result its lyrics, unusually, don't reflect Amy's personal experience.
The portrayal of her husband Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) seems controversial; some critics have found it too sympathetic. The Winehouse family blamed him for introducing her to heroin and she said that their marriage was based on doing drugs. The film, however, suggests that she was more dangerous for him.
Positively, Marisa Abela is spectacular as Amy; she makes her seem real and does full justice to a number of her songs. The film quite subtly shows us Amy's Jewish family and close relationship with both her father, Mitch (Eddie Marsan), and especially her grandmother, Cynthia (Lesley Manville). It makes clear her sophisticated musical tastes, too. She had a strong need to live her songs. In one brief scene she looks and sounds touchingly kind and natural, not a "celebrity".
Appropriately, "arty" effects are avoided. There's just one very striking visual touch, I think: a face half-reflected in a mirror. Scenes shot after dark might recall film noir, though I was a bit disappointed by the limited outside scenes in Camden Town. It would have been interesting to follow Amy's moves in different parts of the district.
We see her, more than once, being chased through the streets. Perhaps these scenes unavoidably recall another woman with a tempestuous life who died very sadly early.
I think this film is uneven but never less than interesting.