“I want to be remembered… For just being me.”

Story: Amy Winehouse was a talented singer/songwriter who was gone much too soon. Here, we take a look at what purports to be her life and times.

Genre I’d put it in: Biopics Made To Clean Up Someone Else’s Image
Release Date: 2024
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on the life of Amy Winehouse. Kinda.

Gotta say: When I saw that Amy’s father had a part in this film’s creation, I was worried it’d be a patch-up job. I was right. This film turns Amy into a clueless drunkard, with her father and Blake the men who couldn’t save her from herself. JFC this film isn’t a biopic, it’s an attack.

I don’t care how talented Marisa Abela is – and granted, Abela is the one good thing in this hatchet job –Black tries so hard to rewrite history it’d have been sued for libel if Amy was alive today. Yes, the singer had horrible issues with substance abuse and alcoholism, dying of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. But this story focuses on moments in time that paint Amy as a vapid, aimless woman, pining for a man and making every decision in her young life about him and her love. It’s a simplistic, insulting take on the woman, especially as in the excellent documentary Amy, we’ve seen that she had a much more robust life. I did enjoy the scenes with Amy and her Nana Cynthia; their connection is beautifully shown in the film, and if the entire run time had been handled with the same loving attention to detail, Black would have been better for it.

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson does a wonderful job making Amy’s life a chaotic affair filled with family, heartbreak, music…and substance abuse. But it feels that as with her take on 50 Shades, Taylor-Johnson is hamstrung by a story that’s equal parts ambiguity and nonsense. The screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh feels cherry-picked and disorganized, with scenes ending and/or starting abruptly. Either Taylor-Johnson doesn’t know how to do a smash cut (doubtful), or Greenhalgh couldn’t string together a coherent story with what he was and wasn’t allowed to show onscreen. Black feels as if the estate – Amy’s family, her father in particular – vetoed a more in-depth look, regardless of how Taylor-Johnson denied their involvement.

One of Amy’s friends (and her roommate ’til Amy’s death) has said Amy would have hated the film, and I don’t doubt it. But as the friend states, Black does take a more sympathetic take on Blake, Amy’s one true love/guy who introduced her to the hard stuff (something this film also pretends she did on her own); I do have to give the film props for trying to be even-handed, though it does feel like he’s more of an unwitting accomplice than a whole-cloth human. No special shout outs in this review, though Abela’s incredible voice-work often steals the show.

The end of the film is a typical “walking away to symbolize death” shot, which Taylor-Johnson shoots beautifully, but feels inadequate. It’s as if she simply willed herself to leave this mortal coil. Instead, she constantly battled her addiction, and seeing more of her fight would have led to a more poignant ending.

With most biopics, there’s footage and/or photos of the individual in question. Here? It’s Marisa-as-Amy closing out the film with an upbeat, positive song. It’s an odd choice for the ending, immediately after the expository text about her death. But I guess nobody wanted to show how Amy’s health had declined in 2011? They could have shown pics of her before her stardom; I’m sure the folks in charge had access to pics like that. But it’s yet another missing piece that Black doesn’t care to touch on.

#Protip: The 2015 documentary Amy was absolutely incredible, and completely devastating. Make sure you check that out if you want to know more about this talented performer.