Back To Black (15, 122 mins)
Verdict: You Know It’s No Good
‘I get all I need from the Daily Mail,’ says the saintly Blake Fielder-Civil in Back To Black, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s new biopic of that most talented, most troubled of singers, Amy Winehouse.
It’s the wisest choice in a film that makes a hundred bad ones, among them its decision to portray Fielder-Civil — Winehouse’s, let’s say, controversial ex- husband — as saintly in the first place.
Here, as played by the overly buff Jack O’Connell, he’s a kind of winsome, toe-tapping Jack the Lad who’s only incidentally involved in his wife’s descent into addiction.
Not that you’d really know about Winehouse’s descent into addiction from this film. That’s another of its bad choices.
We always seem to encounter her après-bender or post-fight, rather than in the moment itself. Back To Black shies away from the ugly stuff so thoroughly that it sometimes looks like a perfume ad: soft-focused and pretty.
Marisa Abela, as Winehouse, has certainly put in the effort to recreate her subject’s look and even her sound
Back To Black shies away from the ugly stuff so thoroughly that it sometimes looks like a perfume ad: soft-focused and pretty
So surely it must really concentrate on — and celebrate — the good stuff? The actual music? Hmm. That was the promise, but it doesn’t really come to pass.
Marisa Abela, as Winehouse, has certainly put in the effort to recreate her subject’s look and even her sound. There’s the same uplifted hairdo. The same lip piercing and tattoos. The same London drawl and jazzy singing voice.
But there’s a big problem: it ain’t actually her. This 90 per cent facsimile just draws attention to the missing 10 per cent: the wayward genius of the original artist.
Much better to put on Back To Black, the album, or the song, and remember what really made Winehouse a star.
A version of the Back To Black review appeared in earlier editions. The film is in cinemas from today.
Brian Viner is away.