I have to be straightforward with you. I’m probably on the lowest end of the totem pole when it comes to being the Target demographic of a biopic about the life and death of Amy Winehouse.

Even in the mid-2000s when Amy Winehouse began to rise to worldwide popularity I never understood her appeal. A woman who had her Peak look like she was on the verge of death became a worldwide sensation singing about her refusal to go to rehab only to die from alcohol poisoning a few short years later.

When Amy Winehouse passed away, many believed that the singer was one of the best voices of a generation. Maybe that’s true for some of you who live in the United Kingdom, but I saw something completely different for someone born and raised in the States.

However, despite my personal opinions about the singer, it certainly was not going to stop StudioCanal and Focus Features from moving forward with the latest musical biopic, Back to Black, which references Amy Winehouse’s most successful commercial album.

Musical biopics over the last several years have been very hit or miss.  As one can point to the success of films such as Straight Outta Compton in Bohemian Rhapsody,  others could easily point to the massive failures such as the Tupac biopic that failed to engage any sense of realism with the featured characters.

When it comes to the Amy Winehouse story is a film that Hollywood has tried to create ever since she died in 2011 but one project after another had fallen through the cracks until they were finally able to put the wheels in motion of this story,  a story that will have you asking yourself,  did TAMU start producing films?

Back to Black is the story of Amy Winehouse played by actress Marisa Abela. The film tells the story of a young Jewish girl growing up In the greater London area who found herself in trouble in more ways than one. One day Amy Winehouse is discovered by an executive at Island Records who decides to sign her to a deal to Showcase her voice and image to a much larger audience.

After maintaining some early success the record label decides to Step and make some changes to Amy’s presentation in hopes of gaining an even bigger following. This was the first step of many rough decisions that led to the emotional downfall Of the singer. 

The next few years of Amy’s life revolve around bad relationships, drug problems, drinking problems, and the consequences of dealing with the monster called Fame that she is not mentally nor physically prepared to accept.

It’s hard to watch this film and not think to yourself they set up Marisa Abela To fail. The screenwriter for this project is Matt Greenhalgh Who is the British writer who got critical Acclaim for his biopic of Ian Curtis, singer of the late-1970s English post-punk band Joy Division. The studio figured that if he was successful with one musical biopic about a big-time British Artist, he could certainly be successful again with the story of Amy  Winehouse.

The director of this movie is Sam Taylor Johnson, the woman who was famously known for her relationship with Aaron Taylor-Johnson which started when she was 42 and he was 18. Take away the films that she has directed which star her husband, and the only other film in her resume is Fifty Shades of Gray. That alone she’ll tell you that we were off to a terrible start with this project.

Abela comes off as a cosplay version of Amy Winehouse especially when she tries to lip-sync over the vocals from Amy’s tracks. Because the film did not hire someone with an actual singing background, The film has to create a lot of movie Magic to make the film seem somewhat presentable.

The fact that they have to dance around so many flaws in the film’s hiring choice is one thing.  Another major flaw to this film is trying to tell about the lowest points of the life of Amy Winehouse without having the film being a complete drag which means that the film admittedly has to omit the more disturbing details of her life.

The storytelling of this movie is very vanilla,  if you have no regulation of who Amy Winehouse was outside of her song Rehab you’re not going to find anything new watching this movie. If you’re a fan of Amy Winehouse you’re going to find yourself struggling between the fact that this movie manages to fall short on the story of her life as well as the story behind her music leaving you with a film that is likely to shower the doughy eyes remembrance of a once famous singer in a story that is arguably 10 years too late.

Back to Black is a film that is as Dreadful as the final years of Amy Winehouse’s life. 

1.5/5

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