From the second it was introduced, in July 2022, the Amy Winehouse biopic Again to Black has been suffering from controversy, with followers criticising all the things from the casting decisions (Business star Marisa Abela performs the singer) to the timing, with some folks claiming not sufficient years have handed since Winehouse’s demise from alcohol poisoning in 2011.
Biopics of well-known musicians might be massively profitable however they’re additionally a minefield. Bohemian Rhapsody, the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic, was extensively criticised for downplaying the singer’s homosexual companions in favour of his relationship with Mary Austin, however ended up grossing $910m (£718m). Like Bohemian Rhapsody, Again to Black is authorised by and made with the involvement of the lead character’s property.
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who made the 2009 John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy in addition to the 2015 Fifty Shades of Gray adaptation, Again to Black is the second movie about Winehouse’s life and legacy, after the Asif Kapadia documentary Amy. Though that movie gained an Oscar, it was publicly condemned by Winehouse’s household. “They’re making an attempt to painting me within the worst potential gentle,” Amy’s father Mitch instructed the Guardian shortly earlier than it debuted in Cannes. The film-makers responded that they’d launched into the challenge with the backing of the Winehouse household, and that their movie was a mirrored image of their findings in the middle of over 100 interviews with individuals who knew Amy.
Clearly, Winehouse’s story is extremely contentious: the completely different gamers have their very own – typically contradictory – opinions about what actually occurred. Then there’s the truth that a lot of it befell behind closed doorways, as an illustration the 9 interventions Amy was just lately reported to have needed to attempt to get her off medication and alcohol. So how does the brand new movie’s remedy of her story examine with earlier accounts?
Medication v adultery: the explanation for the divorce
Winehouse had a couple of romantic relationships however Again to Black focuses on essentially the most consequential one: her quick marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, in the middle of which he launched her to heroin. The movie depicts the pair assembly on the Good Mixer pub in Camden – noting the truth that Fielder-Civil (performed by Jack O’Connell) had a girlfriend on the time – and their subsequent turbulent relationship, together with their hasty marriage ceremony in Miami. In a single scene, by which Fielder-Civil does cocaine the morning after their first night time collectively, Winehouse tells him: “Class-A medication are for mugs.” Mitch has mentioned this was one thing Winehouse was keen on chanting at exhibits within the years earlier than she began doing exhausting medication herself.
Within the movie, Fielder-Civil regularly worries that Winehouse will depart him for somebody extra well-known, a story that appears to have been drawn from his 2009 divorce submitting, which cited her adultery as his motive for leaving her. Nonetheless, we see Fielder-Civil telling Winehouse he’s divorcing her because of the self-destructive nature of their relationship, and the truth that he has detoxed in jail. Fielder-Civil struggled to remain drug-free; he returned to jail in 2011 after burgling a home to fund his behavior.
Little songwriting, no viewers booing
Regardless of manufacturing firm StudioCanal initially saying Again to Black would “concentrate on Amy’s extraordinary genius, creativity and honesty that infused all the things she did”, the movie solely not often depicts her writing or recording. The truth is, till fame overwhelmed her, Winehouse was generally known as a proficient songwriter and a tough employee. In It Ain’t Retro, Jessica Lipsky’s 2021 ebook about Daptone Data, Binky Griptite, who performed guitar on Again to Black, recalled Winehouse being “an actual, 100% bona-fide musician. There have been hints of her points, however there was additionally numerous getting right down to enterprise.”
In a 2019 interview with Howard Stern, Again to Black producer Mark Ronson, who will not be depicted within the movie, recalled the pace with which she wrote Rehab: “She was at all times so quick. She had the entire tune on guitar. All I needed to do was give you a pleasant beat.”
Equally, the movie doesn’t go into Winehouse’s tendency to seem drunk and disoriented on stage. Her 2007 tour is proven to be a hit; it was nevertheless usually an erratic affair, with Winehouse typically strolling off stage and swearing on the viewers. The movie additionally doesn’t depict Winehouse’s catastrophic remaining efficiency in Belgrade when she took to the stage virtually catatonically drunk, forgot her lyrics and the names of her bandmates, and acquired booed by the viewers.
‘If my daddy thinks I’m tremendous…’: what Mitch mentioned about rehab
Again to Black depicts a pivotal second: the 2005 try by her then supervisor Nick Shymansky to get Amy to go to rehab. Kapadia’s movie has Mitch Winehouse saying “She doesn’t have to go to rehab”. That’s mainly the way it goes down in Again to Black too – but it is a model of occasions Mitch himself has contested many occasions. “What I mentioned was, ‘She didn’t have to go to rehab at the moment,’” Mitch claimed in 2015. “[Kapadia] edited me out saying ‘at the moment’.”
For essentially the most half, Mitch (performed by Eddie Marsan) is depicted as a doting father in Again to Black. The movie leaves out an incident from 2010, detailed in Kapadia’s documentary, by which he trailed Amy to St Lucia within the Caribbean with a digicam crew with a purpose to make a programme referred to as My Daughter Amy, by which she appeared uneasy about being filmed.
Heavy on the alcohol, hazy on the bulimia
Again to Black doesn’t draw back from Winehouse’s dependancy to alcohol. It options a number of scenes of the singer stumbling by London swigging spirits – however her demons have been in all probability worse than the movie depicts. Winehouse used many medication in addition to alcohol and crack cocaine. In 2007, she overdosed on a mixture of heroin, ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine and alcohol. And the singer’s bulimia, which she had from her teenage years, is just evenly touched on.
In Kapadia’s documentary, Winehouse’s A&R man Darcus Beese notes that her workforce turned conscious of the extent of her consuming dysfunction through the recording of Again to Black. Alex Winehouse, Amy’s brother, instructed the Observer in 2013 that “what actually killed her was the bulimia”. He mentioned her physique might need been “bodily stronger” and extra in a position to deal with her eventual relapse, had she not been severely underweight.
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Winehouse was additionally identified to self-harm, telling Q Journal in 2007 that she first lower herself when she was 9 out of “morbid curiosity”. In Rolling Stone, author Jenny Eliscu famous that “the scars that cowl her left forearm … look significantly brisker” than she claimed.
Quitting music to embrace motherhood
Again to Black retains returning to Winehouse’s need to be a mom. On the top of her fame, she tells Fielder-Civil: “I don’t assume I used to be placed on this earth simply to sing … I need to be a spouse. I need to be a mum.” We see the chaotic couple disenchanted when a being pregnant check is detrimental.
The document does appear to again this up. Shortly after her marriage, Winehouse instructed Rolling Stone she could be content material to cease making music after Again to Black, to concentrate on homemaking: “I’m a caretaker and I need to get pleasure from myself and spend time with my husband,” she mentioned. “I do know I’m proficient, however I wasn’t put right here to sing. I used to be put right here to be a spouse and a mum and take care of my household. I like what I do, however it’s not the place it begins and ends.”
A sterile dwelling and a tragic ending
Again to Black concludes with Winehouse transferring to a brand new dwelling in Camden, hoping to make a contemporary begin. However within the remaining scene, a sober Winehouse is distraught when a spiteful paparazzo tells her Fielder-Civil has had a child together with his new girlfriend. After Winehouse ascends the steps and contemplates a sterile room of furnishings with its wrapping nonetheless intact, the display turns black as some textual content says Winehouse died in her dwelling after a protracted interval of sobriety – implying a hyperlink between her demise and her disappointment at not having a toddler with Fielder-Civil. There was truly extra of a niche between Amy discovering out about his child, who was born in Could 2011, and the singer’s demise two months later.
Finally, Again to Black will not be the damning indictment of the music trade (and Mitch Winehouse) that Kapadia’s Amy was. Provided that Winehouse was one of many first stars whose downfall was chronicled on social media in addition to within the tabloids, everybody has their very own model of occasions.It doesn’t make her destiny appear any much less grim.
Again to Black is in UK cinemas on 12 April
Within the UK, Motion on Habit is on the market on 0300 330 0659. Within the US, name or textual content SAMHSA’s Nationwide Helpline at 988. In Australia, the Nationwide Alcohol and Different Drug Hotline is at 1800 250 015; households and buddies can search assist at Household Drug Assist Australia at 1300 368 186
