July 23, 2011— the day Amy Winehouse died. The day I went “Back to Black.” My cousins were visiting me in my first apartment with my new husband. We had just gotten Rock Band 3 and were having a blast playing it. In particular, I enjoyed scoring 100% on vocals for “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.
My voice has always been in the alto/contralto range and it was so refreshing to find a musician that sang notes I could hit! I was quite late to the Amy Winehouse party. Sure, I’d heard her a few times on the radio, but this was before the advent of Spotify. Most of my music purchases in those days were second-hand CDs. That day our phones began buzzing simultaneously. “Singer Amy Winehouse Dead at 27.” My heart broke, and it was painful to listen to her music again for many years. She went back to the bottle, so I went back to black.
You’re Wondering Now
This year, I began taking voice lessons simply because I wanted to be a better singer. In looking for songs to challenge myself, I hit play on “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse–the more upbeat version with Mark Ronson. Thus my deep dive into Amy’s full discography began. Who was this woman barely 2 years older than me who poured her heart and soul into her music, and had died so tragically? I finally had to know. Thanks to my main ADHD symptom superpower of hyperfocus, I’ve now done a lot of reading, watched the award-winning 2015 Amy documentary, and now Back to Black. I would hesitate to call myself an expert, but I do know how to do my homework.
Back to Black, the Amy Winehouse film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Matt Greenhalgh is a mixed bag. Amy’s story is one of complications, a struggle with addiction, an eating disorder, and mental health, and processing emotions through art. Back to Black is a veneer of the late singer’s actual life.
Taylor-Johnson and Greenhalgh have said in previous interviews that the film isn’t meant to be a biopic. It’s meant to focus on the love story between Amy and her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. With that in mind, the outright changing of facts for dramatic effect is damning and dishonorable to the person Amy was. There’s more than just this to unpack in this film, and to be totally fair, it’s not all bad. Let’s dig into the good, the bad, and the ugly of Back to Black.
The Good: Marisa Abela
Marisa Abela has been unfairly maligned for her portrayal as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black. Marisa’s Amy is a great encapsulation of the singer’s impulsivity, intensity, and struggle with addiction and codependence. Many have tried, myself included, to emulate Amy Winehouse’s vocals. However, try as we all might, I don’t think anyone can sing totally like Amy Winehouse. Amy’s vocals are what a saxophone would be if one were to become a human. By that, I mean that Amy Winehouse is a perfect jazz vocalist. Her voice is created for jazz, as is the saxophone.
That being said, Marisa Abela makes a very valiant attempt at Amy’s singing and does so successfully overall. She sings very well, and a few times totally nails Amy’s performances. I had to check after the film was done to see which songs she performed and which were Amy’s. According to director Sam Taylor-Johnson, they’re all Marisa. That’s pretty impressive for someone who, according to Radio Times, took it upon herself to train her voice for the role before she was even offered the part. Her most accurate performances are “Me & Mr. Jones,” “Love is a Losing Game,” and “Tears Dry on Their Own.”
Amy Amy Amy
While pulling off your best Amy Winehouse impersonation is not a challenge for the faint of heart, Marisa Abela is about as good as we’re going to get without Amy herself. She does a great job nailing Amy’s look and tenacity as well. I especially appreciate that they did not do what they did with Bohemian Rhapsody and interweave Marisa’s vocals with Amy’s and then add a splash of autotune. While Marisa Abela’s vocals are not an exact duplicate of Amy’s, I appreciate that they are good and are real. Additionally, her scenes with her grandmother, Cynthia “Nan” Winehouse, played by Lesley Manville, are warm and relatable. This and Abela’s vocals are the highlights of the film.
While I take issue with other aspects of Back to Black, Marisa is not the problem in this film. She is the bright spot in Back to Black and should be commended for it.
The Bad: Sugarcoating the Hard Truth
Biographical films can be challenging to execute, no matter how loosely interpreted. Real life simply isn’t as exciting as fiction most of the time. It’s easier to gloss over less savory bits of real life in the service of a more interesting or palatable story. This is the tactic Back to Black has chosen. One example is that of Amy’s heroin usage. The film portrays Amy as shooting up of her own accord, when in actuality Amy’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, was the one who introduced her to the drug.
Additionally, Back to Black softens other facts about Amy’s relationship with Fielder-Civil. Based on accounts from Amy’s closest friends and those she worked with, their relationship was dangerously codependent. Back to Black fails to highlight Winehouse’s first rehab attempt, which she refused to do unless she and Blake could do it together. The attempt was ill-fated and should never have been approved by any doctor. While Back to Black does illustrate some of this toxic codependency, it softens the facts to the point that it romanticizes their unhealthy relationship. Back to Black also fails to mention that at the time of her death, she was in a relationship with film director and writer, Reg Traviss. Back to Black ends with her still being hung up on Blake.
I love Amy Winehouse because there is no pretense about her. To get frank, there was never a hint of BS about Amy. Her music is a testament enough to that. To tell anything less than the whole truth in a film about her life dishonors her memory. It makes Back to Black feel like a coverup, and I don’t think Amy would approve of folks making themselves look better than they are. Amy never did, even when it came to herself.
The Ugly: Some Unholy War
The most egregious part of Back to Black aside from candy-coating the toxicity of her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil is that the film fails to give Amy the full credit she deserves for her musical knowledge and ability. It is frankly insulting to pretend that Blake is the one who told Amy about The Shangri-las when the vastness of Amy’s musical knowledge could have filled the oceans. She has historically cited girl groups of the ’60s among her influences. Yes, she did specifically cite The Shangri-Las as an influence on the Back to Black album, but it is a stretch to pretend as though she’d never heard of them. Heck, even I know the Shangri-Las, and I have only a passing familiarity with ‘60s girl groups. The moral of the story: Amy didn’t need anyone to mansplain music to her.
Further, Amy’s jazz influences only garner a passing mention in Back to Black. In the Amy documentary, Questlove says that Amy put him to shame when it came to jazz. Yes, Back to Black does give her a few lines about being a “jazz singer” and not a pop star, but it limits her influences to a one-line name-drop in her phone call with Tyler and Nick and a conversation about Tony Bennett with her grandmother.
Additionally, the lack of discussion around her musical ability is a glaring omission. Amy taught herself guitar at age 14 and was learning drums for her third album before her death. Further, and even more on brand, she got mad that synthetic strings were added in production to her first album, Frank, without her consent. “I hate the guy who did that,” she said in an interview on the Dutch radio show Toazted in 2004.
What is It About Men?
I mention this because Amy didn’t want anything synthetic in her music. Nothing fake. Real horns, real drums, real guitars, real everything. Every song she wrote was based on her lived experience. No hypotheticals. She was meticulous and cared deeply about her craft, content, and sound. The film highlights the songs that matched the parts of her life they chose to share. However, there is nothing about her care and precision for her craft mentioned in the film.
Finally, the sanitization of Amy’s relationship with her father, Mitch Winehouse, is troubling. Amy loved her father and he managed her finances, but their relationship was not the healthiest. Mitch created a documentary in 2009 called My Daughter Amy, which captured Amy’s recovery. Amy slammed the documentary upon release. It was intrusive. The documentary is completely omitted from Back to Black.
That is but one example of the way Mitch did not do right by his daughter. His lackadaisical attitude toward rehab and her bulimia is another omitted from this story. It feels like Matt Greenhalgh has attempted to absolve Mitch and Blake in his tale of Amy’s life. That doesn’t coalesce with what those closest to Amy have said about her relationships with these men. This gloss of their relationships turns this film into a glorification of unhealthy relationships for me.
Final Thoughts
“All I can ever be to you is the darkness we once knew and this deep regret I had to get accustomed to” sings Amy in “Tears Dry on Their Own.” That is the feeling I am left with after watching Back to Black. I regret that Marisa Abela was not given a more accurate film in which to portray Amy. She did quite well with what she was given, especially her scenes with Lesley Manville.
I deeply regret that many will not dig deeper into Amy’s history and understand that this film is not the be-all-end-all of her story. But most of all, I regret that there is not more being done to reach out to those who are struggling with addiction, eating disorders, and abusive relationships who may watch this film, and then not know where to go for help. Back to Black is a missed opportunity, and for this Winehouse fan, my tears will have to dry on their own.
Back to Black is in theaters now.
