[ad_1]
![Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/BTB_00003-copy.jpg?w=1024)
Marisa Abella in “Back to Black”.
Provided by Dean Rogers/Focus Features
Fans regularly make successful biopics of famous musicians, but they also like to nitpick about the results. Or he might misquote Curtis, Joy Division’s lead singer and the subject of a pretty good music biopic, Ian (Control), when Ai ruins the story, paints the subject matter in such an unflattering light, or worst of all, ruins the music with imitations that barely rise above the level of karaoke, Ai denies a work of fan service. It will ruin it. (If you’re feeling brave, consider that Kevin Spacey played Bobby Darin in the movie. across the sea. )
On the other hand, there’s something tiresome about biopics where actors lip-sync to the original songs, as Naomi Ackie did in the movie. I want to dance with someone Or, much less successfully, Dennis Quaid Amazing fireball! If that means access to the original recordings, or even the rights to the songs in the first place, the script has to go soft on the subject matter’s vices, dark side, or secrets that just aren’t pretty. Especially so.
back to black
conclusion
Bloody ballet shoes filled with soul.
release date: April 12th (UK), May 17th (US)
cast: Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville, Juliette Cowan, Sam Buchanan, Harley Bird, Ansu Kavya, Terika Wilson-Reid, Bronson Webb
director: sam taylor johnson
Screenwriter: matt greenhalgh
2 hours 2 minutes
You might say there’s no way to win either way, except for the box office success of movies like this: rocket man or bohemian rhapsody It goes to show that if a biopic hits the right sweet spot, there are many wins to be had. Somewhere between hagiography and blasphemy, viewers hum the hits.
That Goldilocks Zone is clearly what’s behind the filmmakers back to black They aimed for a carefully calibrated portrait of the late Amy Winehouse, and they largely succeeded. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Matt Greenhalgh. Control similarly a man who is nowherea portrait of a young John Lennon that marked Taylor-Johnson’s directorial debut — back to black Like heroines, they are flawed and fallible, but often very impactful.
Much of the credit should go to Marisa Abela, the star best known for her work on HBO. industry, He captures Winehouse’s unique blend of vulnerability, intelligence, and self-destructiveness like a cornered wildcat. Her hair resembles a symbolic honeycomb, her sexuality exploding from her like a crown of heavy tonsils filled with want and need, sass and insecurity in equal measure. In strictly acting terms, it’s a storm of performance.
Musically, Abella is a little less convincing. Although she is not necessarily a singer by trade, she reportedly took hours of music lessons before being able to imitate Winehouse’s songs on stage. But her end result still sounds like she’s automatically adjusting herself up the wazoo, adding coloratura sound bending and wailing loud notes to make it even harder. At one point Abella, who plays Amy, insists she’s more of a jazz woman than a rock chick, but fans of Winehouse’s work will appreciate how much that shows in her dynamic control. You know.She didn’t tear up until just the right moment, but her performance back to black Like contestants on a TV talent show who have just 30 seconds to impress the judges, always in a rush to get into their gospel-Motown-style extravaganza.
Perhaps the problem lies in recency bias, where viewers tend to watch performances from Winehouse’s still-best-known catalogue, hit singles and most iconic performances. . One example near the end was the night Winehouse won song of the year for “Rehab,” the night the Grammy Awards ceremony was broadcast via satellite in London. That turn is nearly recreated here, with Abella wearing an exact copy of the Dolce & Gabbana dress worn by Winehouse, with every sway of her hips and quiver of her jaw accurately reproduced. For many viewers, this is exactly what they were looking for. But as reported in Asif Kapadia’s excellent documentary, we’ll never again see the moment that night when Winehouse tells a friend backstage that he’s never had as much fun as he did doing drugs. Some people may feel disappointed. amy.
Kapadia’s doc was criticized by Winehouse’s father Mitchell, perhaps because the editing made him look too bad as someone bent on profiting from his daughter’s success. Apparently, Mitch Winehouse and Amy’s surviving family gave the filmmakers this advice: back to blackIt’s no wonder, then, that Mitch, the cab driver played by Eddie Marsan, is more sympathetic. Even if, at a crucial moment, he succumbs to pressure from Amy’s distraught manager (Sam Buchanan) and doesn’t convince her to go to rehab. And she gets her help which she clearly desperately needs. (Sorry, no, no, no, that doesn’t sound like good parenting.)
Similarly, Winehouse’s husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, a source of inspiration and object of her addiction, is portrayed in a very sympathetic way in the script and in Jack O’Connell’s charismatic performance. Thanks to this, our reputation has recovered a little here as well. What Blake ultimately describes as “toxic codependency” in the film is also a genuine love story, with a relationship built around Amy and Blake’s worst instincts as much as their more delicate feelings. ing. At least he deserves credit for introducing Amy to the wall-of-sound glory of Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack.” In one of their first courtships he coquettishly lip-synced it. A scene in a grimy Camden pub.
Despite the sticky nature of Abela and O’Connell’s fissile chemistry, fifty shades of grayTaylor-Johnson has a talent for evoking erotic longing, especially in women looking at men, and at a time when she was best known as a visual artist and contemporary artist. is a subject he frequently explores in his photographic and video works. Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin.
In a sense, the flaw is back to black These are similar to the weaknesses of her art from the late 1990s and early 2000s. A facile interest in the surface, an obsession with celebrity and fame that lacks insight, and a pop-video-like deep approach to storytelling.by the end back to black, we’ve watched Amy rise to fame, fall in love, be heartbroken, and die, but we never really get to know what excites her. Much emphasis is placed on the family relationships between Mitch and her mother (Juliette Cowan), who rarely appears, as well as her grandmother Cynthia (Lesley Manville, moved). But in the film, this seemingly joyful, applauding, piano-playing, Yiddish-singing North London Jewish family does little more than instill in Amy a love of music and enroll her in performing arts school. It has not been verified whether this effect had any effect.
Her talent, spirit, beauty, and anger are as inexplicable as the songs the canaries sing, inherited from Cynthia. But it’s a biopic. It always leaves you wanting more.
[ad_2]
Source link