From the get-go of the biopic being greenlit, the anticipation from film buffs and Winehouse fans alike was washed with hesitance, with distaste over profiting from a young woman’s struggles that were already exploited by the press, the biopic’s release arriving not even 13 years after her death, and the production’s involvement from Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s dad, who hasn’t always had an integral past with preserving his daughter’s legacy. Finally being released in UK cinemas on the 12th April, the film expectedly received mixed reviews from critics, scoring a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.7/10 on IMDb– and unfortunately, it was a no, no, no from me.
Despite feeling my attitude towards the film being tainted by audience discourse and a thousand teary-eyed rewatches of Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning Amy (2015) rendering me disinterested in any other Amy Winehouse film, I tried my best to enter the cinema with fresh perspective and judge the film for what it truly was, but the filmmaking and the writing was poor from the very beginning. Marisa Abela’s and Jack O’Connell’s performances were each strong with Abela especially effectively capturing Winehouse’s iconic contralto vocals, and not to mention there was a scene in the film where I had a tear, but overall the 2 hour drama felt passionless and audacious.
'skimming over the troubles she faced in tandem with her music production made for a film lacking the complexities of her character and story'
The script is bracketed by Amy’s declaration of wanting to be remembered for being her, and with the film merely scratching the surface of the agony that she faced within her too-short career and personal life, it reads as though the film is attempting to portray her beyond her struggles– which seems fair, except it’s well-intentioned execution consequentially portrays a dishonest story. Winehouse’s cause of death is belittled to be her not having children, and the depictions of her father and Blake Fielder-Civil painted them to be all-loving voices of reason.
It’s not that I think a biopic about Amy Winehouse should only concentrate on the suffering she faced in her short life– to be honest, I was worried that the biopic would only focus on this– but skimming over the troubles she faced in tandem with her music production made for a film lacking the complexities of her character and story. In retrospect, the scenes were forgettable and lacked research; the set didn’t reflect the 2000s landscapes but instead just felt like desolate mosaics of 2000s-style memorabilia, and the costume designs were too informed by 2020s styles and shapes. Despite her strong performance, Abela’s portrayal of Winehouse seemed too caricature rather than familiar, restricting me from being able to settle into the film and believe her character, and the conversations between characters left no room for interpretation with conversations being static, stunting the film’s depth.
Amy Winehouse’s genre-bending music and witty character continues to fulfil a legacy of a complex and truly unique musician plagued by pain in her personal life, and releasing a biopic that seemed to be indecisive of whether it wanted to focus on her music or her troubles brought about a film that severely lacked potential and didn’t do her story justice.