Tom Dunne: The Amy Winehouse film may fall short, but there's no doubting her talent
Amy Winehouse in 2008.
Amy Winehouse fun fact? All of it: the two major movies on her life, the five Grammy wins, the 35 million albums sold, her rightful inclusion at the V&A’s Diva exhibition – alongside Madonna and Princess Diana – and the undying public fascination, is all based largely on one 34-minute-long album.
Have 34 minutes of music ever been so gainfully employed?
And yes, Valerie, with Mark Ronson, released just as Back to Black was taking off, tipped it into the stratosphere, but still, it is an amazingly small body of work to have had such an impact. It is a testament to her genius, her star quality, her burning, burning, flame.
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s new biopic is already dividing opinion. To be honest, it was dividing opinion before it even hit our screens. The two-minute trailer was enough for many. People loved Amy. Nothing was ever going to catch that vim. Nothing would ever be good enough.
One of its earliest, and most startling, criticisms was that the actress playing her, Marisa Abela, couldn’t sing like her. What a thought! That’s like saying an actor playing Leonardo Da Vinci can’t paint like him. Of course they can’t. If either of them could, well, where would we even begin?
But there are also legitimate concerns. The film is very light in terms of mentioning bulimia, which some think was partly responsible for her death. No mention either of the Belgrade gig, or the booing at shows, and very little focus on the making of the music, which was akin to alchemy. Hard to portray, I admit, but vital nonetheless.
Because it was the music. Amy was all about the music. I first heard her (or at least noticed her) when a pre-release of ‘Rehab’ was sent into my then Pet Sounds radio show. I was at home, mid-morning when I played it. It was startling. It stopped me in my tracks.
It was, or at least I thought it was, blindingly obvious, that this was a generational talent. The voice, the lyrical turn of phrase, the sharpness, the attitude, the production, the playfulness, the effortless hooks, the song structure, it was all knowing. It never put a foot wrong.
It was one of those songs like The Turtles’ ‘Happy Together’ or The La’s ‘There She Goes’ that sounded like it had always existed. You couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be improved. You just wanted to hear it again and again.
I called the record company. In the days prior to WAV files, they told me that a five track ‘taster’ CD had been sent into the station. A search proved fruitless. No one remembered seeing it. I prepared for my show in sullen acceptance. It was gone.
But, as my opening intro music played, I thought I spotted across the studio, peeking from the bin, a handwritten ‘Amy’ on a CD-R. I peeked in and there it was: the five tracks, two of which were ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’!
People rightly talk about the man who turned down The Beatles (Dick Rowe, who in fairness then signed the Rolling Stones). But honestly, who put the Amy CD in the bin? Who listened to those songs and thought “Meh”?
When I then saw the photographs, the beehive, the on-message tattoos: what else could you think except, “A star is born”.
If you want the story of how Amy came to write and record those songs, the Asif Kapadia documentary of 2015 remains the go-to film. It is a masterpiece. It is moving, powerful, intimate, and shocking. The scene where the paparazzi camera flashes rise to an overwhelming crescendo of madness, is worth the price of admission alone.
However, if you want an insight into how it may have all seemed to a 23-year-old girl with the world at her feet, the Taylor-Johnson biopic is simply wonderful. She was 23 when ‘Back to Black’ was released. She had a god-given talent, she would soon be madly in love, and she had only four years to live.
There is a lot of necessary re-balancing going in this film. Both Amy’s boyfriend, Blake Fielder-Civil, and her dad, Mitch, have often been vilified in the media, with Blake being portrayed as villain of almost pantomime proportions.
Here, they are as Amy saw them: complicated people, that she loved, and who inspired songs that will live forever.
