Back to Black (2024)
Singer Amy Winehouse died at the height
of her fame from a combination of alcohol poisoning and bulimia at the age of
27. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson tells the story of her music career in the
dreary biopic Back to Black.
Winehouse (Marisa Abela) was a
working-class London girl who became a sensation in England and, eventually,
America. But she also had alcohol and drug problems (her biggest hit was "Rehab"),
as well as dysfunctional relationships with her father (Eddie Marsan) and her
husband (Jack O'Connell).
While biopics are certainly a popular
genre these days, the problem is not every famous person or talented artist has
a life story that makes for compelling cinema. Winehouse's story is essentially
a gifted but self-destructive person drinking themselves to death. The 2015
documentary Amy received a lot of praise from critics but suffered from
the same problems. Do you want to spend two hours watching someone kill
themselves in slow motion?
This kind of problem happens in other
biopics, too. The second half of Elvis is often a slog because it's
Elvis destroying himself. That film, however, still had Baz Luhrmann's
filmmaking pizzazz to liven things up. Here, the directing and the storytelling
are very rote and by-the-numbers. No new insights are offered on Winehouse's
psychology.
The best part of the film is Lesley
Manville's performance as Winehouse's grandmother, the one person Winehouse had
something resembling a healthy relationship with. Those scenes have a depth and
humanity to them that the rest of the film lacks.
