Back to Black Review: This Amy Winehouse Biopic is Formulaic AF

Sam Taylor-Johnson's musical biopic is a formulaic mess of a jukebox musical

I’m honestly not sure where to begin analyzing the new Amy Winehouse musical biopic Back to Black. There are just so many angles to look at and moments that are meant to leave audiences saying, “What?” “Huh?” and “Why?” The recent resurgence of musical biopics has had some highs (Rocketman) though more often they’ve fallen into the low category (Bohemian Rhapsody). Much of this stems from questions of how much personal involvement family members and the band have in shaping a narrative, as well as a screenwriter’s individual thoughts on a subject. This is all intensified the more troubled and tragic said subject is.

There was already a lot of fear and hesitation about a biopic centered on Winehouse, whose rise to fame was marred by personal issues before her untimely death and entrance into the 27 Club. The fact that the family has supported the film immediately draws comparisons to other authorized biopics like the most recent one on Whitney Houston. All of that is to say, Back to Black is incredibly safe in its portrayal of Amy Winehouse and her struggles, less content to dive into the messiness of her personal demons and making simplistic statements that she “lived her music.”

It’s fairly lazy to chalk up a person’s life to “they were like their art and their art was like them.” It happens in countless movies about creatives and it always undermines both the subject’s talent and the art they created. It’s even worse when it doesn’t feel like the foundation is even laid for that. Matt Greenhalgh’s script is the key issue with Back to Black, presenting a Cliff’s Notes version of Winehouse’s life that, if you know a lot about her you’ll be angry that the movie skips over so much. If you don’t know anything about her you’ll just be left thinking she wrote songs and had shitty taste in men.

We meet Amy (Marisa Abela) as a typical young woman. Gone is the beehive and the wing-tip eyeliner that would become the artist’s signature trademarks. In its place is a girl who enjoys jazz and Tony Bennett, dates a friend’s boyfriend and struggles with bulimia. Don’t worry, most of those things will never come into play again. Almost immediately — and the editing/pacing sees Amy go from obscurity to instant fame in just a few scenes — she’s called up by Simon Fuller’s management and offered an opportunity to do a demo. But, for Amy, she ain’t about that life. As she says, “I ain’t no fucking Spice Girl.”

This movie has VERY weird thoughts on femininity and, throughout the film’s two hour runtime Winehouse certainly doesn’t ascribe to the Spice Girl’s brand of girl power, that’s for sure. She’s got more in common with Donna Reed. The majority of the movie focuses on Winehouse’s relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), with more limited interactions with her dad Mitch (Eddie Marsan). She’s got a mom but she’s in two scenes so let’s not worry about her! But through these two male relationships Winehouse is presented as needy and hellbent on being a wife and mother. When Blake breaks up with her it’s the sole inspiration for her chart-topping (and still fantastic) album of which the film derives its title.

Abela is perfectly fine as Winehouse and she does attempt to reach for the manic highs and crushing lows of the singer’s life. In the dramatic scenes, or the moments opposite Lesley Manville who plays Winehouse’s beloved nan, there’s a real heartbeat to the film. When Abela tries to sing like Winehouse it….kinda shatters the illusion, especially as Abela has to do some weird trickery with her throat to get some of Winehouse’s vocal patterns that could have just been avoided with dubbing. O’Connell is also fine, though Blake’s main character trait is being a drug user (and constantly asking why Amy beats him up when she’s drunk).

More often then not the movie speeds through the singer’s life with little rhyme or reason. One minute Amy is talking about her love of marijuana and the next is having someone order her crack with no explanation of when that started. Winehouse’s famous missing tooth? Just pops up one day. Even her beehive hairdo is only given a stray reference to being something her grandmother wore that…Winehouse just felt like keeping forever. There’s no sense of interiority into who Winehouse was or the decisions she’s made. The script presents her as haphazard and ill-defined. The film holds more in common with director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s misguided adaptation of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces which isn’t a good sign.

Even the musical performances feel lackluster. Winehouse’s big Grammy performance of “Rehab” here plays like bad karaoke with Abela singing a-capella with no orchestra and just some backup dancers clapping.

Mostly, Back to Black feels as sanitized as it can be, particularly if you’ve seen the far superior (though problematic) documentary, Amy. It’s clear that the creatives involved can’t hide Amy’s issues with drugs, but it feels like a Lifetime-translation of the mid-2000s without any of the cultural reevaluation we’ve had about that time period and the female celebrities affected by it. Then again this is a movie that also has a line wherein Amy declares “I’m not a feminist. I like boys too much.” The movie has an opinion on her feminism and none about her appropriation of Black culture. The film is weirdly heavy-handed with including Black backup singers around Winehouse as if they’re friends in spite of the singer, apparently, having absolutely no friends outside her family.

Back to Black is a jumbled mess of pop star biopic 101 tropes. Marisa Abela is a good actress but the role just lets her down time and again, hampered by a shoddy script. If you’re looking for more about Winehouse and why she was such an icon go watch the documentary. No doubt this movie will do gangbusters with casual Amy fans who just want to enjoy singing “Rehab” in a movie theater.