Back to Black review – Some success despite stacked odds

An Amy Winehouse biopic was always going to be an utter downer of a watch. The life story of the English singer – which ended at just 27 – is a fundamentally tragic one, one that encapsulates the consequences of addiction and the dark side of fame, excess, and bad influences that resulted in a life cut short.

To make a successful biopic, at least one in the eyes of the cinema-going public, is to celebrate the life that was lived. Those attempts are clear with the new film Back to Black, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and starring Marisa Abela in the lead role. Taylor-Johnson’s approach to the material is to lean away from Winehouse’s career highpoints and more into the personal life that happened around them. Does it work? The result is more of a decent enough watch, and less a deep dive into its subject.

Back to Black tells Winehouses’s story, establishing her Jewish upbringing in South London, the relationship with her taxi-driving father (played by Eddie Marsan) and grandmother Cynthia (Lesley Manville), and how she began to gain popularity with her regular nightclub gigs and her first album, Frank in the early 2000s. Winehouse proves to be a loose cannon who seeks to “live” her songs, and is not particularly driven by the success her musical career brings her.

The film details the performer’s relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), a young man who would go on to be Winehouse’s husband and eventually ex-husband – but not before the two’s combined addictions kickstart a downward spiral laced with alcohol and narcotics. It was, however, to culminate in Winehouse producing Back to Black, one of the most successful albums in UK history and winner of five Grammys in 2008.

While it’s a good choice to hone in on Winehouse’s family and romantic life as the emotional pillar of Back to Black, it does leave other circumstances around the singer’s success unexplored. The majority of the runtime is spent on her relationship with Fielder-Civil, who is the winner of the revisionists’ game here as he is depicted with more sympathy than he probably deserves (the real Fielder-Civil has spoken about how he introduced Winehouse to hard drugs during their time together).

Furthermore, you can’t really shake off the feeling that you’re watching an anti-drug PSA, with Amy’s drug-taking put front and centre to the point it overshadows all other parts of the narrative. This is best exemplified very early on in Back to Black in a scene where Mitch Winehouse is driving his daughter back from a family gathering and explicitly orders her not to experiment with drugs. This is a biopic. You don’t need that heavy-handed foreshadowing.

Fortunately, like most musical biopics from the last few years, Back to Black is sustained by the efforts of its lead actress. Marisa Abela does stellar work portraying Amy – one that demonstrates her range above and beyond her work on the HBO drama Industry. Thanks to Abela, you feel sympathy for Amy from the word go, and she successfully conveys the subtleties of a talented and powerful figure slowly losing control over the course of the film’s runtime. Abela also gets points for singing the songs herself, contributing to the authenticity of the performance. Meanwhile Lesley Manville’s role as Cynthia Winehouse produces the most tear-jerking moments of the film.

Back to Black also benefits from its smart use of Winehouse’s music, which is part of the filmic composition. The titular song is used during a funeral scene (as it was in its original music video) to outstanding effect, and the climax where Amy sings “Rehab” at the 2008 Grammy Awards ceremony, is a strong number to end on. And, while this may just be indicative of the popularity of Winehouse’s music, the film’s rendition of “Valerie” was powerful enough to prompt the audience at my screening to sing along.

While it’s difficult to judge the film as its own thing, divorced as it is from what happened in the real world, and was reported on heavily, Back to Black is never a bad watch on its own. Ultimately, it will achieve the invaluable goal of drawing attention back to Winehouse’s too-short discography, which continues to boast some of the greatest lyrics ever put to a beat. Despite what the title suggests, though, it never feels like it’s spending that much time digging in dark places, which is a disservice to the tragedy at its core.

Back to Black is in South African cinemas now, having released on 12 April.