I knew absolutely nothing about her life, assuming I still know little as I'm sure there was a good amount of whitewashing going on here. But I surprisingly enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. I don't know how close Marisa Abela came to capturing Winehouse but I do know a good performance when I see one, she was phenomenal! Jack O'Connell knocked it outta the park as well! I was constantly engaged. I knew Winehouse had tragically passed away far too soon but wasn't familiar with the circumstances. When the cause was revealed at films end and how young she was I became unexpectedly emotional?! I know many reviews are absolutely crushing this, I'm sure most of those people are far more knowledgeable about Winehouse than I so please forgive my ignorance. The good news is Back to Black has made me very much interested in leaning the whole story, not just the cherry picked, glossed over, cliffs notes version it presents. I'll definitely check out the far better received documentary.

I went into this movie not expecting much but was pleasantly surprised. The marketing for this movie was strange, after one strong trailer, which I saw a couple of times, and then there wasn't much more after that, and closer to the release date, there was no advertising for this movie. As the movie moved along, the more I enjoyed it. When this movie started I was like oh boy this doesn't look or sound good. There was some horrible HORRIBLE dubbing of Amy Winehouse's voice that I was almost surprised got allowed to be in the film, but it got progressively better. Marisa Abela, who I had not seen in anything before was good at this, and I was impressed. To me, the biggest problem, and it's a huge nitpick is they skip through and skim through a lot of stuff. Her drinking, which is well documented here but they don't go in-depth with it, and her drug use, which from one scene to the next, just starts doing without an explanation why. She goes from one scene saying “I don't do drugs” to the next, doing crack and heroine, how did that happen? There was a lot that was just passed by so quickly. And of course, they don't have enough time to show you everything but I thought it could have been displayed in-depth more. The documentary “Amy” is way better than this and way more detailed but I thought they could have fed off that. Same thing with her music, there wasn't much into making her music and to start it off she's just famous and they don't get into how she got famous. But again all these gripes are huge nitpicks, overall I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. I liked this more than the Bob Marley one. I do think this will have a good resurgence when it gets to streaming, but yeah surprisingly enjoyable.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. We begin near the end of the icon’s journey, only to flash back to where it all began. The icon has a strained relationship with their family, immediately giving them unresolved trauma. But they have a special talent and someone in their family (most likely a grandparent) acts as their motivational coach. They suddenly hit it big, but are blindsided by the pressures of fame and the need to conform. They fall in love with an outsider, which, coupled with the growing stress, leads them to drugs and alcohol. Everyone says they need help while the excuses keep piling up, eventually ending in a burnout that crowns the tabloids. After some soul-searching, they find themselves back at the top performing one of their iconic songs. It ends back where we started, with the untimely death being revealed during the postscript, along with all their other achievements. It would be damn near impossible for you to guess what single movie I was describing. Even if you narrowed it down to just the past five years, you’d still have to decide between "Elvis," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Respect," "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," and "Bob Marley: One Love." The musician biopic subgenre has become such a cliché at this point that there’s even a sub-subgenre for parodies like "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." But even those are starting to feel a little stale, as the jokes don’t have the same punch when you can see them coming from a mile away. Writer Matt Greenhalgh would have only needed to add a few jokes to his "Back to Black" script to make it into one of those parodies. All the other tropes are already there, so why not make this a comedy? It’s surely not a compelling drama, nor a “definitive” retelling of Amy Winehouse’s life. Everything has been scrubbed with disinfectant several times over, leaving behind a product so basic that you’d barely get the impression that this person was special at all. The one laughable thing is Greenhalgh’s treatment of Winehouse, with his pen always pushing her further down the gutter. Between the alcohol, the ever-growing lineup of drugs, and discussions of self-harm, there’s nothing that Amy isn’t doing to destroy herself. Greenhalgh’s claim that all this self-destruction was predominantly spurred by Amy’s inability to have a child is both borderline insulting and too neat. There’s also the unintentional running joke of Amy saying that she needs to stay true to herself while also perfectly following the rags-to-riches template. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has previously shown an interest in musicians, helming the 2009 John Lennon origin story "Nowhere Boy." The strategy doesn’t seem to have changed in the decade-plus since, with the beats being produced in a forgettably competent manner. The staging of Winehouse’s performances is quite nice, with star Marisa Abela doing a fine impression both physically and vocally. Less than stellar is Jack O'Connell as her sleazy on-again, off-again husband, and the relative sidelining of Eddie Marsan and Lesley Manville. Getting anything out of "Back to Black" will be a tall order for any viewer, regardless of your familiarity with Winehouse’s life and music. There’s also the unavoidable presence of the Oscar-winning 2015 documentary "Amy," which covers more material with more depth in just as much time. But as long as Winehouse's songs see a bump on Spotify, then the producers will be happy. And we all know that’s what really matters in this landscape.

Before I talk about this Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black” it’s important that we all understand the definition of the word “formulaic.” (For those paying attention, no, this is not an encouraging way to begin a film review.) Lots of films adhere to one storytelling formula or another, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that. A formula is just a framework of familiar dramatic elements which many films adhere to because those elements are usually satisfying. Which brings me back to Back to Black, which is about as barebones as a musical biopic gets and that’s saying something! This genre has been played out, unironically and with little innovation, for so many years that simply telling a singer’s life story and wrapping it around how they wrote their most iconic songs doesn’t pack any punch by itself. Back to Black tells the story of the beloved Amy Winehouse but shows no passion in telling it and has nothing to say about the events that transpire. It’s the utter minimum of what a biopic can be. It’s not just mediocrity, it’s mediocre mediocrity! Marisa Abela seems genuinely invested in Winehouse’s plight and goes to great lengths to recreate her stage persona, sometimes to good effect. But she never quite captures Winehouse’s energy. The most frustrating thing about Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Back to Black is that Winehouse’s brilliant art and tragic fate have inspired millions of fans all over the world but they haven’t inspired anybody to make a better motion picture. There’s nothing cinematically bold, nothing inventive in the telling, and ultimately very little point other than that her life was sad. As a fan of Amy Winehouse, I found this to be a generic sightseeing tour of Amy Winehouse’s life, showing us basically what happened while offering no insight and little style. Back to Black cheated itself, and you know…that’s no good!

Amy represented counterculture, but this film did not try to explore how this film can differentiate itself from average biopic. Amy is reduced to her obsession with a man. When you try to push for feminist ideas but the only black that she goes back to is that man. And I’m sure there are a lot of layers in Amy’s story that could have been explored (ie. her relationship with her career) and not just her relationship with Blake. Screenplay lacks the gut punch. Great musical biopics deliver the emotional beats with the person’s original music. But the execution in this film just did not hit. Marisa Abela’s performance is the only shining star in this story. So leaving a star for that on my rating.