Back To Black: The Coles Notes Version of Amy Winehouse's Life

By Liz Braun

Rating: B

It’s remarkable to see Marisa Abela transformed into Amy Winehouse for Back To Black, the new Sam Taylor-Johnson-directed film about the larger-than-life British performer.

Abela looks and sounds just like Winehouse, only with the rougher bits knocked off as per the magic of movie making. Winehouse was all about the rougher bits, so that’s going to be a problem for some.

Back To Black is a lovely film with great music (and a score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis) and a terrific cast; Abela does her own singing. The issue is whether it has anything to do with Amy Winehouse. That's all in the eye of the beholder, no doubt.

The movie opens with a few scenes of a younger Winehouse interacting with her family. In particular, her relationships with her beloved Nan (Lesley Manville) and her cab driver father (Eddie Marsan) are emphasized.

It’s early-ish in the singer-songwriter’s career. Here she is performing at The Dublin Castle and signing with Island Records and singing at Ronnie Scott’s, so it’s around 2002, give or take. In short order, Winehouse is hella late for a label meeting, furious at everyone in that meeting, and already drinking a lot. Whoa, whoa, whoa — is there no explanation about any of this? No background, no lead-up, nada?

What follows is Winehouse’s first meeting with her future husband and agent of chaos, Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), depicted in Back To Black as some sort of working-class boulevardier, a snooker-playing, horse-betting amusing dude who introduces Winehouse to the Shangri-Las.

Their passionate affair/terrible fights/subsequent break-up/eventual reunion/marriage/break-up then takes over the story. Winehouse was undone by the relationship, no question, but the love story focus kind of short-changes the genius that was Amy Winehouse. It's vaguely reminiscent of Lady Sings The Blues (1972), a Diana Ross vehicle that suggested Billie Holiday spent all her free time mooning around over Louis McKay. Wut?

Meanwhile, Winehouse’s eating disorder is referenced in passing in a scene with her roommate; her hard drug use appears to arrive in her life out of the blue in another sequence. It’s all a bit confusing. This is perhaps a kinder, gentler Amy Winehouse story? Maybe so, but there’s no opportunity for emotional investment, despite Marisa Abela’s wonderful performance.

It’s all a bit like seeing a good cover band.

Back To Black. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, written by Matt Greenhaigh. Starring Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan, and Lesley Manville. In theatres May 17.