It's one of the most anticipated movies of the first half of 2024 — and one that comes complete with a perfect narrative for the big screen. The Amy Winehouse bio-pic, Back To Black, is full of drama, passion, romance, conflict and tragedy. But what makes this latest from director Sam Taylor-Johnson such a crushing disappointment is that it isn't just her rise to mega-stardom that's a tragedy. The film is as well.
The by-the-numbers narrative starts with Winehouse (newcomer Marisa Abela) as a cheeky, confident North London teenager with a love of jazz who rises to the top very quickly but is determined to manage her career in her own way. "I ain't no Spice Girl!" she reminds her agent. On her way up, she meets the man who turns out to the be the love of her short life, Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) and the combination of their intense and turbulent relationship and the pressures that go with life in the glare of publicity bring all her personal frailties to the fore — addiction, obsession and an eating disorder among them. She died suddenly in 2011 from alcohol poisoning at the age of just 27.
