Review: A Refreshingly Honest Look At The Short, Troubled Life Of Amy Winehouse

https://deadline.com/2024/04/back-to-black-review-sam-taylor-johnson-marisa-abela-amy-winehouse-1235878213/

What not be immediately apparent is that Back to Black is the story as seen through the singer’s own eyes, which is a very smart way of dodging the bullets that accompany any attempt to tell her rise-and-fall story. Although there is a LOT of foreshadowing in Matt Greenhalgh’s script (when her beloved Nan refuses a cigarette, you know exactly what’s coming), this isn’t a retread of Asif Kapadia’s almost forensic documentary Amy, which turned the tables on the accepted narrative of Winehouse as willing tabloid fodder. Instead, it actually indulges some of her self-sabotaging behavior, which may seem reckless but doesn’t seem to have tarnished any of the male members of the 27 club.