Back to Black Review

Filmmakers begin a flippant adaptive process for those we feel nostalgic for. First, it was Queen and Elton John, next is Bruce Springsteen and now is Amy Winehouse. Back to Black stood on shaky grounds when it was first announced as the wounds of her death are still sore with her fans and the public, especially now the likes of Ian Winwood have written so well about mental health in the music industry. There must be care taken with an adaptation of Winehouse’s life which maintains her musical presence as well as the difficulties of her personal life. You cannot lean into one without the other and, unfortunately for director Sam Taylor-Johnson, trying to have the latter with only a contractually obligated glance at the professional triumphs Winehouse received, is as sickly a way to get into the gossip and results in a TV movie-like biopic. Trashy, exploitative filth that is more interested in the background noise which contributed to the demise than the music it inspired.  

Reliant on the soppy tones Nick Cave provided the movie, Back to Black cannot rely on performance or direction because it is never given the breathing room to do so. Every scene is paired with a particular sense of dishonest creativity. It cannot face up to the sharp and harsh truths of Winehouse and her rise through the ranks of the music business because this plays out like a best-of compilation rather than an articulate dissection of her life. Even with the intimate access granted and the one-note portrayals of familial trust in Cynthia Winehouse (Lesley Manville) and obvious troublemakers formed by Jack O’Connell’s portrayal of Blake Fielder-Civil, Taylor-Johnson cannot move her film beyond the half-baked highlight reel now affecting biopics on a larger scale. This is a shining example of how a straight shot at adapting the past can be influenced by those in the production wing of a film, and how a baseline understanding of an artist is nowhere close enough to qualify adapting their intimate heartbreaks and triumphs. 

An insult to even the most passive of Amy Winehouse fans and an inarticulate, tabloid-like adaptation of her life. Her music and talent take a backseat to the very controversies and press interest the film is rallying against yet backing completely to exploit for a new generation. Little changes like the Ray to Blake switch in performances of Rehab feel like revisionism for the sake of shoehorning in new meaning which does not present an accurate or honest portrait of a person whose life was already the heart of a media storm. This is not the moral high ground at play but a plain understanding of taste. Playing down the issues of drugs and alcohol as a want for a settled life is as disgusting a turn as it gets. Ending with Tears Dry On Their Own like some afterthought Live Aid adaptation as Bohemian Rhapsody did is as large a slap in the face as the placard telling viewers Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning. Implications on what caused Winehouse’s death are played off as necessary speculation when, in fact, Taylor-Johnson verges closer to obsession over this. All but two scenes feature a bust-up, blow out or break-up, and the two which don’t are reserved to show Frank and Back to Black recordings. Musical output in the adaptation of a musician’s life should not be an afterthought. It should be front and centre.

Back to Black remains disconnected from the real world and its portrayals and direction do it no favours. There is a flippant disregard for Winehouse as a presence on stage despite early attempts in the film to articulate her growth as a performer. Marisa Abela marks an absent performance while Eddie Marsan plays up a cockney accent and spends most of his time on screen in the back of a cab. These are stifled bits and pieces with no concept of narrative. Moments of potential interest shuffled away for the sake of focusing on the personal turmoil. Taylor-Johnson leaves out crucial details and influential parts of a creative titan taken too soon. Back to Black is as uninterested in the source of its singer as those who pushed her into a tour which would eventually lead to another collapse, though this is strangely omitted from the film. We as a culture now have a desire to be retold what we lived through, no matter how poor a quality experience it is.