‘Back To Black’ Review – A Biopic That Misses The Mark With Fans And Casuals
I have to be straightforward with you. I’m probably the lowest end of the totem pole when it comes to being the target demographic for Back to Black, the biopic about the life and death of Amy Winehouse.
Even in the mid-2000s, when Amy Winehouse began her rise to worldwide popularity, I never understood her appeal.
A woman who at her peak looked 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 just a few short years later. When Amy Winehouse passed away, many believed the singer was one of the best voices of our generation.
Maybe that’s true for some of you guys living in the UK, but I saw something completely different being born and raised in the United States. Despite my personal opinions about the singer, it certainly wasn’t going to stop Studio Canal and Focus Features in moving forward on the latest musical biopic Back to Black.
When it comes to the Amy Winehouse story, this 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 wheels in motion of this story.
Back to Black tells the story of Amy Winehouse, played by Marisa Abela, as she is introduced to audiences as a young Jewish woman growing up in the streets of the Greater London areas — where she found herself in trouble more often than not.
One day, Amy is discovered by an executive at Island Records, who offers to sign her to a deal to showcase her voice and her image to a much larger audience. After maintaining some early success, the record label decides to step in and make some changes to Amy’s presentation in hopes of gaining even a bigger following overseas.
This was the first of many bad decisions that led to the emotional downfall of the singer. Over the next few years, Amy’s life revolves around bad relationships, drug problems, alcohol abuse, and the consequences of dealing with the fame monster that she is not mentally or physically prepared to accept.
The screenwriter for this project is Matt Greenhalgh, a British writer who got critical acclaim for his biopic of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the late ’70s band Joy Division. The studio figured that if Greenhalgh was successful at one musical biopic with a big name British artist, he could certainly regain that success with the story of Amy Winehouse.
The director of this film is Sam Taylor-Johnson — the woman who is famously known for her relationship with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, which started when she was 42 when he was 18. Take away the films that she directed with her husband, and the only film on her resume is Fifty Shades of Grey.
That alone should tell you that we’re off to a terrible start with this project.
It’s hard to watch this film and not think to that lead star Marisa Abela was set up to fail. The actress comes off as a cosplay version of Amy Winehouse, especially when she tried to lip sync over the vocals from Amy’s tracks. Because the film did not hire someone with an actual singing background, Back to Black, has to create a lot of movie magic in order to make the film 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 is Back to Black was trying to tell about the lowest points in the life of Amy Winehouse without having the film go to a complete drag, which means that the film admittedly omits more than one disturbing detail about her life.
The storytelling of this movie is very vanilla. If you have no recollection about who Amy Winehouse was, outside of her hit song ‘Rehab,’ you’re not going to find out any new information watching this movie. If you’re a fan of Amy Winehouse, you’re going to find yourself struggling between the fact that this movie managed to fall short of the story of her life as well as the story behind her music as well.
Leaving you with a film that is likely going to shatter your doe-eyed remembrance of a once-famous singer and a story that’s arguably about 10 years too late, Back to Black is a film that’s about as dreadful as the final years of Amy Winehouse’s life.
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Back to Black (2024), Studio Canal
PROS
- Authentic UK story.
CONS
- Miscast lead.
- Soft story.
- No focus.
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