‘I need to live my songs’: Amy Winehouse biopic ‘Back to Black’ drops first full trailer

Jordan Hoffman
·3 min read
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As surely as the sun rises in the east, Hollywood will produce musical biopics. There’s something about that particular kind of fame that works on film, especially if the subject died tragically. (Recent Best Actor Oscar winner Rami Malek, who took home the gold for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” can speak more about this.) 

Focus Features has a potential box office hit on its hands with “Back To Black,” a biopic of the working-class British singer Amy Winehouse, who became an international sensation and then died of alcohol poisoning at age 27. All it needs to do, really, is recreate this in its entirety and the movie can’t go wrong:

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The picture stars Marisa Abela, a relative newcomer who is best known for co-starring in the HBO series “Industry.” It was reported that Abela does her own singing in the film, which is good for her future prospects as a star, but kind of undercuts the “Back to Black” premise of Winehouse being a once-in-a-lifetime talent a bit. Showbiz!

It was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose 2009 movie “Nowhere Boy” focused on John Lennon’s early life. Co-starring is Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil, who was married to the musician for a few years, and Eddie Marsan as Winehouse’s cab-driving father who, in the Oscar-winning 2015 documentary “Amy,” is shown saying his daughter didn’t need to go to rehab for her addictions (Winehouse included a line about this in her hit song “Rehab”; how can a song be so peppy when we know it caused such grief?!!). Winehouse’s father later disputed the context of how that anecdote was relayed in “Amy.” (“Back to Black” was made with the full support of Winehouse’s estate and family.)

The film hits theaters (and maybe an out-of-competition debut at Cannes?) on May 17. The title, of course, comes from her smash second album, a multi-platinum seller, which featured the hit “Rehab.” She won five Grammys that year (including Record of the Year for “Rehab”) but lost Album of the Year to Herbie Hancock’s Joni Mitchell tribute “River: The Joni Letters,” which featured a diverse array of talent including Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen, Wayne Shorter, and the great Vinny Colaiuta on drums. This writer wishes to formally thank Fate for not making him a Grammy voter that year, as there is no possible way to choose between these two great works (even if Winehouse’s album was much more famous).

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