“Back to Black”, by Sam Taylor-Johnson, recreates the life of the unfortunate star, highlighting his best moments, avoiding decadence, but falls into repeated clichés.
A new film about Amy Winehouse has its world premiere. The star with an excellent voice and intonation, frank and challenging lyrics, ordinary manners, a personal nose, an active sexual life, who sometimes wore a little necklace with the Star of David and a Crucifix, both together, for some, died due to a mixture of drugs and alcohol, for the forensic experts because of an alcoholic coma, without the presence of drugs, and for the father because of the pills that had been prescribed to him to combat the withdrawal syndrome. He had always spoiled her. And she had always, since she was little, transmitted her devotion to jazz and soul, which would lay the foundations for her style.
He died in 2011, at only 27 years old, adding to the macabre list of “27 club” (artists who died at that age, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, among others) . In 2015 Asif Kapadia made an intensive, and incisive, documentary about her, her loves, and her vices, “Amy.”as well as others on Ayrton Senna and Maradona (which the idol hated without even seeing it, and here no one dared to release it). Kapadia he won the Oscar with that documentary about the singer.
Now Sam Taylor-Johnsonthe same director of “50 shades of gray”, has made a biopic. Her gaze is warm, quite knowing, logically understanding and feminine. And her story has the good taste to avoid the last two, embarrassing, seasons of failed recitals. There are already too many films about artists in decline, giving pity and shame. Her story ends appropriately, in a moment of vague elevation.
What comes before is conventional. Performances full of clichesimages of a half-vulgar London, life in bars, the stages of a career guided by whims, and that famous toxic love that destroyed his spirit (“I had a moment of lucidity. The prison psychologist told me that we should separate, because ours is a toxic love.”the useless man tells her that he has fascinated her and that he introduced her to the consumption of hard drugs).
Teachers, managers, agents and businessmen barely appear. The story focuses on his love life, and is woven into successive well-placed songs: “What is it about Men”, “Stronger than Me”, “Know you now”, “Fuck Me Pumps”, “Back to Black”, “Rehab”and especially the classical, and classicist “Love is a Losing Game”. From time to time, sometimes, other voices, previous and famous, are heard in the background.
Marisa Sabela, an almost unknown twenty-something, gets into character, puts her own voice to the songs, makes herself believable. They accompany her Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan like the tender and amazed father, and Lesley Marville (“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”) like the grandmother who pampers her everything and combs her hair horribly. Matt Greenhalgh is the screenwriter, distant author of a heartfelt and small piece, “Movie stars don’t die (in Liverpool)”. He also made a half-expendable script about the early youth of John Lennonfor a film Taylor-Johnson with which she threw her young husband.
By the way, this would be enough for another movie: Sam was 42 years old, had two children, two divorces and several video clips, when she seduced a 19-year-old boy, channeled his career, improved her own, married him and has lived since then. happy, with two more children.
“Back to Black” (GB-USA, 2024); Dir.: Sam Taylor-Johnson; Int.: Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Marville.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
