Title: Back to Black
Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:
HOMER: To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Troubled singer enjoys great success before being enabled into an untimely death.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2.5 Patsys out of 5
Tagline: “Her music. Her life. Her legacy.”
Better Tagline: “Only the good (singers) die young.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: After a meteoric career rise (and brief tenure as possibly the most-paparazzi-ed celebrity in Britain), singer Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) succumbed to alcohol poisoning in 2011. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Back to Black chronicles Winehouse’s rise from jazz bar chanteuse to Grammy winning superstar, backdropped by her relationships with one-time husband Blake Fielder (Jack O’Connell), dad Mitch Winehouse (Eddie Marsan), and beloved “Nan” Cynthia (Leslie Manville).
“Critical” Analysis: The musical biopic has long since transitioned from a way to peer behind the curtain of the lives of our favorite artists (What’s Love Got To Do With It?, The Buddy Holly Story) to toothless efforts that border on hagiography (Bohemian Rhapsody, I Wanna Dance With Somebody). Back to Black dips its toes into some of the darkness in Winehouse’s life, but is too timid to take the full plunge.
That’s because Taylor-Johnson (directing from Matt Greenhalgh’s script) doesn’t deviate from the musical biopic mile markers: singing in bars > landing a record contract > singing in bigger venues > making TV appearances > winning awards > superstardom > dissolution > death.
If Winehouse was guilty of anything, it was terrible taste in men. Her meet cute with Blake Fielder (now Blake Fielder-Civil) ignores that Fielder is a sofa surfing, popped collar d-bag who doesn’t know what the word “anachronistic” means. And he already has a girlfriend! That this guy would end up being the love of Winehouse’s life isn’t exactly flattering.
If you were unaware of the documented evidence (watch Amy when you get a chance) that Fielder was an enabling piece of garbage, Back to Black won’t change that. He’s mildly more sympathetic here, presented as the calmer yin to Winehouse’s yang. He leaves Winehouse the first time due to her violent drunkenness, then leaves the marriage when he gets clean in prison and learns words like “toxic codependence.”
Which forces us to balance the real-life allegations that he was the one who introduced her to crack after their trip to the U.S. (they got married in Miami) with O’Connell’s nuanced performance. He’s the film production assistant you love to hate, and makes it easy to believe Winehouse fell for him.
The movie takes an interesting tone in choosing to focus on their relationship. Winehouse’s music initially takes a backseat to her conflicts with Fielder and the paparazzi, though the relationship with her Nan is key (and Manville kills it as usual), with her death acting as a catalyst for future bad behaviors.
There’s also a serious (and justifiable) effort to make Winehouse a victim, swept along by her mental issues and unable to accept the help offered by her father. Problem is, we know that’s bullshit. Taylor-Johnson spends too much time pushing the loving father-daughter dynamic, when actual history has Mitch quoted as saying, “You can’t force someone into rehab,” and then her record company CEO went ahead and did just that. But then, you don’t have to look much further past the fact Mitch condemned Amy while giving his enthusiastic thumbs-up to this.
And I don’t know if the intent was to present Winehouse as helpless, but that’s more or less the message. Cast adrift by grief and mental illness, Abela’s portrayal necessarily leans into the sensationalistic. And she has an almost impossible task: to show Winehouse in a sympathetic light while realistically replicating that voice. To my surprise, she does a decent job of both.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, usually notable for their haunting scores (The Proposition, Wind River), are mostly absent here, minus Cave’s “Song for Amy” that plays over the final credits.
Nobody’s perfect. The problem with Back to Black is how it makes even a depiction of imperfectness the enemy of good (filmmaking).
Back to Black is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
