Movie Review

The music of Amy Winehouse takes a back seat in Back to Black

Marisa Abela in Back to Black.

Photo by Dean Rogers/Focus Features

When and how to honor celebrities who have passed away at a young age is a tricky prospect, doubly so if that person died under tragic circumstances of their own making. That’s the dilemma facing Back to Black, a biopic about singer Amy Winehouse coming a mere 13 years after she died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.

The film, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Matt Greenhalgh, starts as a young Amy (Marisa Abela) is about to set off on her singing career. Encouraged by her father, Mitch (Eddie Marsan), Amy takes her love of jazz music and updates it with her confessional songwriting and unique voice. Unfortunately, she also has a drinking problem, a combustible personality, and a habit of picking codependent partners like Blake (Jack O’Connell).

The story charts her rise to fame, including her acclaimed debut album, Frank, and her Grammy-winning second album, Back to Black. It also, of course, follows her descent into full-blown alcoholism, a journey that few in her life seem willing or able to try to prevent. The juxtaposition of her enormous talent and the way she sabotages herself make up the drama of the film on the way to its inevitable ending.

It’s easy to see the quandary that Taylor-Johnson and Greenhalgh had in making the film. If you focus too much on Winehouse’s music, you run the risk of sugarcoating the life of someone with significant demons. But if you pay too much attention to her faults, then you’re overshadowing the reason she became famous in the first place. Unfortunately, the filmmakers chose the latter option, and the film as a whole suffers because of it.

If you didn’t know anything about Winehouse’s career, this is not the film to watch as it gives almost no insight into her creative process. Her various hits – “Valerie,” “Rehab,” and “Back to Black” – all come fully formed in the film, with only small allusions to how they came to be or what they mean to her personally. The movie talks about what an intimate thing music is for Winehouse but doesn’t give the audience the ability to fully relate to that feeling.

Taylor-Johnson and Greenhalgh do, however, revel in the negative aspects of Winehouse’s life. Her drinking and often disagreeable nature were clearly a big part of who she was, but in the film it often seems like that’s all there was to her. She has run-ins with virtually every significant person in her life, making it unclear why anyone would put up with someone like that, talented or not. While there are some attempts at softening her, they’re too few and too ineffectual to matter.

The lone bright spot of the film is the performance of Abela. The English actor, previously best known for starring in the TV show Industry, puts in great work, doing solid impersonations of Winehouse’s distinctive speaking and singing voice. She does so well in the singing part, in fact, that it’s a shame she doesn’t get more opportunities to show it off. Even when saddled with the dreary portions of the story, she remains a compelling presence.

Making a biopic about Amy Winehouse is as close to a lose-lose proposition as you can get, and the results in Back to Black don’t do anything to dispel that notion. Winehouse’s life is one worth delving into, but only in the proper storytelling hands. To see a more successful version, check out the 2015 documentary Amy.

---

Back to Black opens in theaters on May 17.

movies film music celebrities reviews

Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

---

Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

movies film