Back to Black
STUDIOCANALTwo things are automatically working against Sam Taylor Johnson’s Back to Black. The first is trusting the same industry of media that thrust haunting and often abhorrent damnation towards a young, bright and vibrant, but troubled, Amy Winehouse – her voice and story they maligned and mocked in real-time. The second is that this production comes quite controversially from the estate that holds quite a lot of onus in these very troubles, and after Asif Kapadia’s damning but deeply poignant documentary in Amy, which this very estate comes into questioning and ultimately refused to endorse or further participate, throws the intentions of Back to Black firmly into question.
Well, that question can be answered straight away. Back to Black is a conscience cleaner from the very same people who damned this woman, offering a metaphorical and spiritual apology while absolving all blame. It is a corporate sham that plays the cheapest and most insensitive hand it can to cleanse sins and dishonours the very sentiments it’s trying to create. The feature itself has the audacity to state that Amy was a trailblazer and against corporate-forced culture all the while being a forced corporate entity crafted in the most simplistic, lifeless and hollow manifestation. It’s unbelievably tone-deaf and, quite frankly, delusional that this has the arrogance and ignorance to project itself as such.
From its inception, coming from its own estate, how can Back to Black be considered remotely objective? It’s ludicrous that the multifaceted and larger-than-life subject of Amy Winehouse has been purified to the state of general public admission without honouring the reality and integrity of this beloved icon and human being who was subjected to a level of harassment and fragility (which cost this persons life!) that not one single human being who has lived on planet earth has been programmed and trained to withstand. Elements of the documentary of Amy – which showcases the true light of family dynamics, music industry and just general lack of support, as well as Amy’s mental health – are either eliminated or glossed over in cutaway verbal dialogue to remind the audience these things are a reality but not important. The tragedy of all this is that it not only dishonours the tragedy of Winehouse but others who are suffering similarly but are just reinforced that nobody cares. Granted, often enough in these cases such sentiments are the principal factors to tragic ends, but in this specific context and subject, this is a person who was chastised by the media and culture that absorbed her and then spewed her out to the side of the street, only finding compassion when everything was said and done and held no guilt about its role.
Each sequence of turmoil is constructed in two manners. The first is that the audience sees the prelude to potential drug taking and mental illness and then cuts away into a montage of Amy sporadically looking quite ill and then suddenly healthy. The second is that the viewer sees the result of drug taking, violence of mental illness without showing the cause. Either formulation of said sequences fails to elicit a clear and honest conclusion of what transpired, what Amy felt, what pushed her away. Granted, this may come across very much like the very rhetoric damned within this review, why do we need to drudge up the last, villainise those who have been forgiven and reminisce the horrors and tragedy in an exploitative manner without championing a one in a lifetime talent? Herein lies the issue: this particular story of this reality and subject should not have been made. The documentary Amy takes an objective lens of everything surrounding Amy and her voice to witness her life in often troubling but honest detail. This just feels exploitative to want to try and show elements of harrowing nature but never fully commit, which genuinely feels and acts more repulsive.
Where to even start about the context of the film? For starters, the screenplay is god-awful. It is derivative drivel. Combinations of terribly flawed screenwriting conventions in which conversations are trying to be personal but constantly refer to the forced layered meaning of trauma of past events to build character and dynamics, all the while never actually seeing anything but constantly being told. Be it Mitch’s relationship with Amy's mum. Her Mum being ill. Her relationship with Blake. Her relationship with her Nan. It’s all the same sentiments of talking to each other with nobody saying anything, a forced layer of tragedy encompasses, and then a montage ensues of that tragedy. It NEVER gets its hands dirty and showcases Amy’s reality and story. It doesn’t want to show a multifaceted, three-dimensional person or characters. It can’t villainise itself or incorporate parties because it’s the very same people that are producing this nonsense. Take for example any moment that Amy may do something wrong or act in a way without clarity, the film will always find slithers of reasoning and excuses to absolve drug abuse and action. This person can’t hang out with bad people or make bad decisions because they’re anti-drug. It’s all just ludicrous child-like meandering to appease an image that didn’t exist. Amy, in this film and reality, needed to have lived her pain and life to find her art. An honest, brutal and devastating fuel to give the world this voice and heartfelt sorrow, and yet Back to Black can’t even imagine being this brave and powerful, to exist on this artistic plane of living life to its extreme without a single regret. All the while the inner turmoil and simplistic rendition of love clouds the mind and judgement. It is a tale older than time but, due to the charisma, culture and iconography of Winehouse, it is made so much more compelling in the sense in which it found itself. None of the above sentences are found here – none. Her devotion to Blake. Her unabashed attitude towards what she loved, what she stood for. It’s not here. She is a one-dimensional character who fell in love with someone and it destroyed her. What a shambles and pathetic projection to a cultural icon who means so much to so many people. What an utter travesty to her life and image that an absolute dire piece of garbage concocted to absolve sins of the family that has the gall to release this.
The one saving grace here, and genuinely the one thing that saves this from utter diabolical catastrophe, is Industry star Marisa Abela. Now this isn’t a great performance but it is a far more multifaceted assessment of Abela’s talents than good or bad, primarily due to what she’s working with: tragically, nothing. The dialogue is constantly reiterating that this character is trying to almost convince us what she’s saying and therefore herself. So it projects a layer of constant insecurity and repetition which gives the impression this character is not growing or developing. If anyone has seen Industry, Abela has screen presence. She’s incredibly charming, elusive and deeply intoxicating. This is a different attempt at crafting a character but not at one point does Winehouse enter the frame and dominate. Now, in a more talented and intelligent feature, this could have worked so well in showcasing Amy getting lost in her world, finding herself drifting, but no, Back to Black attempts to intrusively throw this character as the most charismatic and charming central figure but it never works due to the aforementioned repetitiveness and material that never wants to explore her intelligence, her personality, her image, her expression. She just drinks and talks about tattoos – that is very much it. What is more heartbreaking is that, with a better writer and intelligent production, Abela would have been flawless in this; no shadow of a doubt at all. She brings everything she has in charm, honour and respect to this person but nobody else wants to meet her halfway. It’s almost as if on occasion she’s waiting for the scene to take that next step, and it just lets her down every time. She’s never given that moment to wow either and, for a biopic, that is fundamentally appalling. Then again, what else is to be surprised about in an appalling and utterly awful production that gives the impression it couldn’t care less about its subject? How heartbreaking.
