BACK TO BLACK

Back to Black hit cinema’s on Friday across the UK. When I first heard that there would be a biopic on singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, I was excited to see what it would turn out. The person portraying her on screen would have to give an Oscar worthy performance due to the fact that she was a larger than life character both on the stage and off.

Though Back to Black (which sees Marisa Abela play Amy) is a cute little love story about the turbulent relationship between the singer and her ex husband Blake, it still left me with so many questions about the singers life history. I’m not the worlds biggest Amy Winehouse fan, but with only 122 mins to tell the Camden legends life story, I felt as though important things about her were skimmed around or missed out. For example, her younger years and how she became hooked on drugs. Another disappointment is that Island Records clearly did not sign off on using Amy’s original vocals in the movie. Marisa tries to belt out hits such as Rehab, Valerie and film title Back to Black. Marisa does a good job but no one can live up to Winehouse’s powerful, jazzy vocal punchiness. On the upside, watching the film had me streaming a collection of her hits on the DLR on the way home.

Supporting cast members such as Jack O’connell (who plays Blake) are entertaining to watch and Eddie Marsan (who plays Amy’s father Mitch) brings a nice sense of fatherly warmth in the movie. I just wished the film would have delved deeper into her drug use and the real cause of her self sabotaging pain to allow the actors a chance at giving a raw cut throat performance. With all of that said, I give the Studio Canal production 2 stars out of 5.