Back to Black: Amy Winehouse film and what the critics are saying

The film is titled Back To Black, the name of one of the singer’s most famous songs and also the title of the 2006 album it comes from – later nominated for a BRIT Award and the Mercury Music Prize, and winner of the 2008 Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album. To date the album has sold well over 16 million copies and the title track has over 900 million plays on music streaming platform Spotify. Backers of the new film will hope for similarly large numbers in terms of box office takings.

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What is it about?

Opening with Amy singing at a Winehouse family gathering and ending in the huge, empty house she was living in when she died in July 2011 aged just 27, Back To Black follows the singer’s career as she makes her way in the music business, holding on uncompromisingly to her creative vision even as others seek to mould and shape her. In particular the film delves into her tempestuous relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, whom she married in 2007 and who has admitted responsibility for introducing her to heroin.

Who is the director?

She is Sam Taylor-Johnson, Turner Prize-nominated photographer turned film director. In 2009 she made Nowhere Boy, about the childhood of John Lennon. Since then she has also made Fifty Shades Of Grey, based on the best-selling erotic novel, and A Million Little Pieces, co-written with her husband, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson. “Back To Black won five Grammys and sold over 16 million copies, and it is the framework for my film,” says Taylor-Johnson. “Amy’s heartbeat, louder with every heartbreak, every song is a devotional outpouring of her love story between her and Blake. This is a love story, it is also a love letter to her, and it is told in her voice, her words and her perspective. She sees only good because love is blind.” She adds: “I wanted to make a film from Amy’s perspective, through her eyes. The only place where her truth could be found was in her lyrics and music. I decided to tell her story through her own words, from the songs that she wrote, the songs where she poured out her soul. She sung of her love, her pain, her disappointment, all infused with deep emotion and often savagely sharp humour.”

Who plays Amy?

The starring role goes to Marisa Abela, a relative unknown whose biggest roles to date have been in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (she plays Teen Talk Barbie) and BBC Two drama industry, though she was named as a Star Of Tomorrow in 2023 by influential industry publication Screen International. She’s joined in the cast by former Skins star Jack O’Connell as Fielder-Civil while Eddie Marsan and Lesley Manville play Mitch and Cynthia Winehouse, respectively Amy’s father and grandmother.

What are the critics saying?

Abela absolutely nails Amy Winehouse and critics have poured praise on her performance. “Abela’s Amy is an authentic force of nature,” writes industry bible Variety, “and every inch the Winehouse we know from her ecstatic, tormented, spilling-over-the-sides, saturation-coverage-by-the-media image — and from the brilliant Oscar-winning documentary Amy which kicked off the Winehouse renaissance that this movie is the culmination of.” Overall, however, the reception has been mixed, with some paid critics – and many more unpaid ones on social media – claiming it gives too easy a ride to those around the singer who contributed to her problems or failed to save her from herself. Describing it as “miserable”, Little White Lies writes that the film “claims to celebrate the life and music of Amy Winehouse, but instead serves as a ghoulish encapsulation of everything wrong with the music industry and fame machine.”

When is it out?

After its glitzy in premiere in London earlier this week, the film is released nationwide on April 12.