![Chasing Amy Winehouse? “Back to Black” is worth watching, but…[RECENZJA]](https://ocdn.eu/pulscms-transforms/1/aNbk9kpTURBXy9mOWIyOTUyMjg2MWMxZDIxNGRiNDBjNWUxZDVmODNlMy5qcGeTlQMAIM0EAM0CQJMJpjNhMGFlZAaTBc0EsM0Cdt4AAaEwAQ/back-to-black-historia-amy-winehouse.jpg "Chasing Amy Winehouse? “Back to Black” is worth watching, but…[RECENZJA]")
- “Back to Black. The Amy Winehouse Story” directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson in cinemas from April 19
- The lead role is played by Marissa Abella (“Industry”), and her co-stars include: Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Juliette Cowan and Lesley Manville
- In our opinion, this is another competently filmed biopic, full of emotion and music, showing the life of a great star in a completely honest and fluid way.
- A standing ovation for Marissa Abella, who played and sang Winehouse's songs brilliantly (!)
Amy Winehouse's sudden death on July 23, 2011 was a devastating loss, although expected by many. Five years ago, this young Englishwoman, who loves jazz and boldly mixes it with soul, funk and RnB, delighted the entire music world. Her unique voice, her undeniable theatrical charisma, her exquisite sense of composition and lyrics…
The tabloid world of Boulevard focused more on the star's troubled private life, primarily on her alcohol and drug addiction, rehab, and her stormy, even toxic marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil.
Amy's biography has become a vivid example of the fall of a great star. Winehouse's premature death placed her in the “27 Club”, alongside Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain.
Deadly sins of biography
Years later, it emerged that Amy's first biopic would be directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who had previously directed the drama “John Lennon: The Nowhere Boy” several years earlier. You can theoretically breathe a sigh of relief. In theory, because the same director is also responsible for the lesser-known “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Some concerns were also raised by the fact that the green light for production had been given by Winehouse's heirs. This should have been necessary, but it could have resulted in an attempt to mythologize the heroine, create a smoother image or justify the weaknesses and problems she had. Most biopics (movie biopics) suffer from this, because they are very safe and therefore predictable. Just remember the last song “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” about Whitney Houston. This unfortunately applies to the movie “Back to Black,” even though we are dealing with a movie that is worth watching despite its many flaws.
Your face looks… identical
It starts traditionally. We meet the charming Amy and, above all, the singer from the Camden area of London, who is entering adulthood and lives in a very musical family, including: thanks to his father, the singer and taxi driver Mitch Winehouse (Eddie Marsan). She's a cheerful girl surrounded by suits, and maybe drinks a little more than most of her peers, but nothing of the sort happens. He loves music much more than them.
– No, I'm jazz – she once said when asked if she felt rock and roll. A little reserve, because he feels the music no matter what type it is.
From the first scene, Marissa Abella seems completely in tune with the role, and this impression not only changes in the subsequent minutes and quarters of the production, but also intensifies. Physical resemblance is one thing, and a lot can be done with makeup, but here it works at the level of subtle gestures, winks, nooks and crannies in body language – not to mention theatrical charisma and choreography.
What's more, Abella not only plays Winehouse, he sings all the songs – We didn't have that in “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” nor in “Rocketman” or in “Bohemian Odyssey.” She does it perfectly, capturing the smallest details in her voice, even though she has apparently never sung before. Aside from the music itself, it's Back to Black's greatest asset. It reproduces the certain darkness and organicism of Amy's tone, her emotional spontaneity.
What about this story?
However, cinema is a story, and this is the story we miss the most. Everything moves so fast – we don't really have any explanation for how Amy got to the top.
“Back to Black,” on the other hand, is a film so packed with music that it almost becomes a music video – We hear up to a dozen or so songs performed by Abella, sometimes in their entirety. It is also accompanied by other hit songs, for example from the repertoire of the female group The Shangri-Las, which Amy discovered after meeting Blake Fielder-Civil.
The theme of a toxic relationship with her boyfriend and husband of two years is prevalent in the film. Jack O'Connell feels very good in the classic bad boy role, even though his character is presented stereotypically. Thanks to this, he will please the audience, who unanimously blame him for Amy's downfall, primarily through her drug use (she previously abused alcohol). He also attacks tabloids, especially the photographers they employ.
All because of this love?
The film does not answer the question of what Amy saw in this extremely cruel man who returned to his lover for money after she gained international fame. And she doesn't have to – you can conclude for yourself that Blake appeared in her life as a symbol of masculine strength and self-confidence, which she had never experienced from men before. She had those things within her reach, after all. If it were not for the painful breakup and Blake's return to his ex-girlfriend, the album “Back to Black” would not have been created.
There is a lot of melodrama in this biopic, especially in the character's relationship with her grandmother Senia (Lesley Manville), who is dying of cancer. Perhaps this was intended to justify Winehouse's later downfall, which was presented quite selectively, as a sensitive girl who took too many kicks from fate and became the victim of an unhappy love.
Instead of a letter, a postcard
We see arguments and violence, there is blood, but we look at it as if through cellophane. Many threads have been omitted, and the treatment of the last period of Winehouse's life – or rather its omission – makes it so We leave the cinema feeling dissatisfied. Unless the creators wanted to leave an undisturbed image in our minds – a star going to rehab who, as we learned, “died of an alcohol overdose after a long period of abstinence.” Anyone who followed Amy in the last months of her life knows that was not the case at all.
There are a lot of great shots here, including slightly shaky ones, during turbulent moments in Amy's life. CThere's also some great illustrative music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, as well as an emotional “Song for Amy” during the end credits.
This does not change the fact that instead of a satisfactory portrait of an extraordinary, though constantly falling, star, a sort of farewell letter constitutes an appendix to her astonishing career, We received a colorful postcard. It is nice to look at, and you can be moved and amazed many times, but there is not enough content.
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