Back to Black

Intriguingly "Back to Black" seems to be a film that is finding little consensus amongst the professional reviewers. I found the central performance excellent, but wonder if it's decision to, perhaps realistically, not portray anyone as the villain of the story, hurts its entertainment value.

A prodigiously talented singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) has a growing reputation and a hit album. Before starting work on the next album, she meets Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) in a Camden bar and the pair begin a relationship. Already struggling with Bulimia and alcoholism, Blake's own hedonistic lifestyle sends the pair into a spiral of violence and addiction. When they break up, Amy's pain forms the basis for the songs on "Back to Black" her second album, which has worldwide success.

I think Marisa Abela is great as Amy. I know her from the BBC series "Industry" and her performance here, which includes her singing impression is maybe reason enough to see the film. In fact, it might be the only reason to see the film. Maybe that's a touch unfair, the performances from O'Connell, Eddie Marsan as her father Mitch and Lesley Manville as her grandmother Cynthia are all decent, even if none of them stretch much beyond what we've seen them do before. (In fact, I'd really like to see O'Connell play something other than a swaggering, self-destructive character).

The consensus narrative that has been told about Winehouse is that Fielder-Civil was the junkie that dragged poor Amy down and that Mitch sacrificed his daughter's health in order to not risk her success. Both ideas are present in the film, though it paints neither as the villain. Perhaps that's realistic, certainly it doesn't rob Amy of agency in her own story, but I did, at times, feel a little bored by what the film chose to present. It's quite long, at two hours, and whilst her talent was prodigious, maybe her life story wasn't full of as many different types of experiences as would justify this films existence.

I don't think the film adds up to enough for me to recommend it, which is a shame for Abela, who is really giving her all.

The key credit to this film was Marisa Abela's portrayal of Amy.

Jack O'Connell is one of my firm faves and can bring charisma to any character he plays.

The film uses Amy's songs to fit in with the narrative, rather than the accurate timeline in which they were released.

It was an entertaining watch but offered a simplified view of Amy's life and turned it into nothing more than a toxic love story. The relationship with her parents wasn't really covered and the timeline of events didn't show how a mix of fame and drugs can take their toll over time.

I watched the 2015 documentary 'Amy' shortly after and would recommend this if you're wanting an insight into the life of Amy Winehouse.

This film would be good as a fictional film about made up people, but average as a biopic about a real person's life.

Marisa Abele saves this film, her performance was excellent. She was able to show the fragility of Amy Whinehouse but also her bolshie attitude to those around her.

Her relationships with men were flippant until she met and fell for Blake Fielder-Civil. Some would say he being her downfall.

The biggest influence in her life was her grandmother, a Jazz lover and stylish lady. Her death was a tragedy which I don't think she fully recovered from.

I left the film wondering why she was so self destructive, and wished somebody had intervened to help before it was too late.

At least her music lives on.

Truth, if it were needed, that Lesley Manville can turn her hand to anything, but otherwise this is a rather unremarkable biopic of a woman whose character, I must confess, I didn't actually like very much. She is the nan of Amy (Marisa Abela) and the two have a special bond. Amy lives with her mum who is divorced from her dad Mitch (Eddie Marsan). He fancies himself as a bit of a crooner and she is steeped in jazz, determined to write her own songs and make a success of herself - on her own terms. Enter Nick (Sam Buchanan) who works for music mogul Simon Fuller and she is, after an initial bit of hostility, signed up and on her way. The remainder of the chronology is all pretty straightforward as Sam Taylor-Johnson decides to focus on an entirely speculative look at how her personal life developed. Amy's increasingly strained relationship with her friends and her father, her grandmother's terminal illness and her "toxic co-dependent" relationship with the charismatic Blake (Jack O'Connell). There's no doubting that many of her songs are great - even if the role of Mark Ronson in any of that is largely ignored, and hats off to Abela for putting her own slant on them. She does her own singing and though she does rather over-egg it, she does imbue a sense of the sheer force of personality this woman had. O'Connell, too, does well enough - especially with his Shangri-La dance in the pub when they meet, but somehow the whole narrative is just too bitty and episodic. The presentation of her character is way too shallow and frankly she is portrayed as a bit of an obnoxious brat. Her increasing exposure to the hounding paparazzi is well illustrated and that growing sense of exasperation obvious, but again we jump around too much as we seem to be rushing to a conclusion we know all about. At two hours it is too long in many ways and too short in others. The dialogue offers us little insight into just who she was and by the end, I felt sad for her but can't say I really cared about any of them. The aggression of the photographers seems to receive a disproportionate share of the blame for her predicament whilst rather discounting her own series of bad choices fuelled by her own immaturity and by the public's obsessions with watching what it builds up come crashing down. They couldn't sell their photos if we didn't want to buy them. A memorable musical legacy left behind by one who, along with so many other ground-breaking but flawed musical geniuses, might just have been better left for our ears.

The performance by Marisa Abela is brilliant, she is Amy Winehouse. However, if you know anything about Amy Winehouse you know that she had an incredibly unique voice, suffered with addictions & was hounded by the press. None of this is shown to its true potential in the film, which to be honest is disappointing. I expected to hear more of her singing and performing. The picture paints her Dad Mitch & husband as 'not bad blokes'. Neither of them were good blokes. Her Dad, should have & could have been far more supportive & intervened at her most desperate. Blake was an out & out addict, the film does not portray the impact that either of them had on Amy. Rocket Man, Bohemian Rhapsody & Elvis nailed their stories, sadly Back to Black doesn't.