Back to Black: Music used to be Amy Winehouse’s rehab, but alcohol killed her

Amy Winehouse would have turned 40 in September this year. The singer did not reach that age and died – how time flies – in 2011. Time for a film, rightly named after her life’s work Back to Black from 2007.

Singing jazz and soul and still conquering the world as a real star is not something many artists can do. Amy Winehouse from London (1984) did it. Mainly thanks to the album Back to Black (five times platinum in the Netherlands), the single of the same name, but also Rehab and Valerie that she made with Mark Ronson. However, she also became that big star with cotton candy hair, constantly chased by paparazzi, with a lifestyle characterized by alcohol, drugs and suffering from the eating disorder bulimia.

We are therefore curious how that mix of great success and decline would be put into a film. Would it mainly be an ode, or the story of drinking – really drinking a lot – smoking heroin, vomiting food and therefore becoming very thin? Back to Black is therefore Metro’s Film Review of the Week. It will be in cinemas from tomorrow.

With Marisa Abela, director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey) chose an actress without a really big name like Amy Winehouse, although you have probably seen her as Teen Talk Barbie in the blockbuster Barbie. There are already many opinions circulating about her and the film Back to Black. Metro only saw the film on Monday and to be honest, it is not nice to go into it with open eyes – and ears in this case – when you already read so many opinions.

On the one hand, there are some pretty positive reviews. On the other hand, there are grumblings. Marisa Abela doesn’t look enough like Amy Winehouse, for example (disagree and it’s still a movie, people). Her singing voice would also not be close enough to Winehouse. But yes, imitate her perfectly as an actress who had never sung before and had to take singing lessons.

The striking movement of the jaw is identical. Besides, weren’t we perhaps spoiled too much with the incredible performances in the films about Queen and Elvis? This film would also come ‘too soon after her death’. Most of the buzz about Back to Black, however, is about the story. Amy Winehouse’s real life would be even ‘blacker’ than what is presented to us on the silver screen. The singer would, as it were, be spared.

After two hours of Back to Black, this viewer can say: were you part of that life or something? But above all: if you don’t find this life too boring, what then? It is quite nice that, despite all the misery, Sam Taylor-Johnson has also chosen to make it an ode to Amy Winehouse. Because she was so good. And yes, also unmanageable, for sure. In 2007, for example, she was too weak to perform at Pinkpop. Krezip subsequently proved to be a decent replacement. And many in the world will still remember her very last shaky performance in Belgrade. It was intensely bad and sad to see at the same time.

Amy Winehouse wanted, as it sounds in Back to Black, that her voice would make people forget their worries for five minutes. She succeeded. “I’m not a fucking Spice Girl,” she told her first manager, who was… the manager of The Spice Girls. “I don’t throw out ten hits before lunch, I have to experience my songs first.” Too bad the worries didn’t stay away from her own life. According to the singer herself, music was her rehab for a long time. However, in 2008 she could no longer avoid it and she admitted herself to a rehab clinic.

To return to those aforementioned grumbles: that could well apply to father Mitch Winehouse’s share. In an earlier documentary he was portrayed as a downright money-grabber, in Back to Black he comes off mercilessly. And the end of the film, after the final ‘real rehab’, also comes quite suddenly. It was great that she was clean and was rewarded with five Grammy Awards, but three more years of life followed. Given the fatal drinking in 2011, the ending may not have been too happy.

Anyway, there is plenty to enjoy with this fine film. This Metro viewer is very pleased with Marisa Abela, but also with the performance of Jack O’Connell as Blake, the great love (and drug user) of Amy Winehouse. Lesley Manville also shines. She is the grandmother that Winehouse loved so much and saw as her style icon. The urns containing the ashes of grandmother and granddaughter are currently standing next to each other.

By the way, Cynthia Levy and Amy Winehouse were both Jewish women. It is discussed very briefly in Back to Black, but I would be curious to know what the two ladies and friends of this time would have thought. It would undoubtedly have resulted in another impressive song. Unfortunately it was not to be.

You can read Metro’s Film Review of the Week on Wednesday evening. New titles usually appear in Dutch cinemas on Thursdays (such as Back to Black), sometimes on Wednesdays. Reporter Erik Jonk chooses the films. Next week: Sting, which is definitely not recommended for people with a fear of spiders.