Review: Back To Black

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

There has already been a substantial movie chronicling the life, music, and untimely death of British singer Amy Winehouse - the 2015 documentary by Asif Kapadia - and it will probably remain the last word on the subject. 

Sam Taylor Johnson's new biopic, "Back to Black," is a solid showcase for actress Marisa Abela, who does a fine job as Winehouse, but the film makes the same mistake so many musical biopics of the past have made - it treats the music as background noise, while focusing on the dysfunction, alcohol and drug abuse, and tumultuous relationships of its subject.

As such, one might believe that Winehouse was not quite the singular talent of the Aughts - a singer with a unique voice whose retro stylings and deeply autobiographical lyrics made her sophomore album, "Back to Black," a surprise sensation - but rather a woman who just drank a lot and spent much of her time pining after a guy who, based on this movie, really wasn't worth it.

That guy is Blake (Jack O'Connell), a rogue whom Amy meets at a bar who impresses her by being familiar not only with her music, but also that of the Shangri-Las as he sings along to "Leader of the Pack." As it turns out, Blake already has a girlfriend, whom he occasionally ditches to spend time with Amy.

Amy's father (played by Eddie Marsan), a cab driver, is another individual whose heart is filled with song, but he acts as an enabler, whereas Amy's "Gran" (Lesley Manville) is her "style icon," but also her best role model. When Gran dies, Amy shifts all of her attention to Blake, a self-described drug addict whom we can see is bad news.

For much of the film, Amy and Blake consume alcohol, get into fights during her concerts, get tattoos together, sleep together, break up, rinse and repeat. The recording of the iconic "Back to Black" is mostly a footnote - there's one scene of her recording the titular song, only to have it act as a commentary on Amy's relationship with Blake, while a live performance of "Rehab" is thrown in for good measure later on.

The music biopic genre is one with fairly stiff conventions. There's typically not much deviation - other than "I'm Not There," which brilliantly threw all the rules out the window, or "Straight Outta Compton," which incorporated various social elements surrounding N.W.A. and the Los Angeles riots - and "Back to Black" unfortunately focuses primarily on some of the genre's most cliched tropes - namely, addiction and the turbulent relationship between the film's subject and her paramour.

It's not a bad film - but merely an overly familiar one. Abela is the picture's bright spot. Despite that we learn little about Amy other than her relationship and addiction woes, the actress takes the material she has been given and does her best with it. Likewise, the ever-reliable Marsden and Manville are solid in their supporting roles. But if you really want to get a full view of the singer, the documentary is the way to go.