Back to Black Movie Recap (2024)

 

Back To Black Movie Recap

Before I begin this review, I want to clarify the legal drinking age in UK is 18. When I first saw this movie in theaters, I confused about this until I looked it up. So yeah, let’s get into this movie. Amy Winehouse is a family girl who has a love for jazz music. She comes from a musical jazz family and she has a voice like Judy Garland, according to her Nan. The next morning Amy gets a phone call from her friend Tyler who hands in her demo tape to Nick Shymansky who works for 19 Management head by Simon Fuller. On the way there, Amy listens to Lauryn Hills Miseducation album. Then she performs at a showcase and after the showcase, Virgin givers her an offer but turns it down. So she settles with Island Records. She travels to Miami to record the album Frank. Released in 2003, her album does well in the UK.

Before the release of Frank to America, the label wants Amy want to improve her stage presence. Amy calls this BS, and leaves. She enters a musical hiatus as she wants to live the album she created. At a pub, that’s where she meets Blake. Blake is a fan of Amy and they bond through alcohol and a game of pool. They get close until Blake’s girlfriend shows up. But Amy is still over the moon but is hiding an eating disorder at the same time. The one lady that understands Amy is her Nan as they have a special relationship. Amy tells her about Blake and that’s when Nan drops the bomb that she has cancer.

Amy unites with Blake and they kiss, right in front of his soon-to-be ex girlfriend. He goes to Amy’s place where they make love. The next morning Amy catches Blake snorting up and wants Amy to participates, but class A drugs are for mugs (bars). But he calls her out for smoking weed. They go to the zoo for a day date. After their date, the get more tattoos and Blake gets Amy’s name behind his ear. Never get anyone’s name tatted. Amy finally performs drunk and she tells the crowd about Blake and they boo but Amy claps and gulps back. During her performance, Blake retreats to the parking lot and Amy isn’t pleased. They get into an argument and punches Blake.

The next morning, Nan wakes up a hungover Amy and warns her of nights out and while Amy understands it won’t stop her. Amy and Blake get into an argument and he tells her that he’s going back to the ex and encourages Amy to return to music. He also tells Amy to control her drinking before it’s too late. Her manager comes to Amy’s place where he discovers her passed out. He gets her father involved and they recommend Rehab but she says no, no, no. She promises to decrease her drinking on the condition she goes back to the studio and record. She agrees on the condition she leaves Simon Fuller’s management. She hires new management and Nan gives her a new (and later) iconic look in homage to all the ladies of the 1960s.

She travels to New York to record her album later known as Back to Black. During the recordings, Nan succumbs to lung cancer. Back home, the paparazzi starts to harass Amy trying to get any and every piece of her. Now drinking isn’t enough for her, she now does the hard stuff to numb her dark pain. We then get a scene of her performing Valerie. After this, Amy and her dad visit Nan’s grave and Amy says she wants to squeeze in their someday, yikes. During the visit, she gets a text message and that’s where we get the opening scene of her running. And it’s a bird, it’s a plane, not its Super Blake. They reconcile and rekindle their relationship.

They travel to Miami and get married, to the dismay of her dad. They celebrate their union with a nude swim (can’t be shown on YouTube). But the marriage is tumultuous, shocker. The press is still stressed over Amy, and Blake would later be arrested for assaulting a pub landlord, he would be sentenced two years in jail. We then show Amy at Glastonbury Festival, which is one of her notable performances of Me and Mr. Jones, all while possibly inebriated. Amy visits Blake in prison and Blake wants a divorce for the sake of their health as Blake took counselling and is now sober, even though the divorced after her Grammy wins Her dad discover a crack pipe in his home and advises her to go to rehab and this time she says yes, yes, yes.

Rehab was a time for her to get clean and more importantly get away from the pesky paparazzi. While in rehab, she finds out that she was nominated for several Grammys. After rehab, she performs “Rehab” via satellite since she couldn’t make it (something to do with her complications with her green card). After her performance, Amy wins nearly all the general awards (except for Album of the Year), with her mum standing next to her she gives a brief speech. Three years later, Amy is on her own living, possibly clean and sober. She gets informed about Blake new girlfriend and baby. Amy walks to her bedroom where she sings “Tears Don’t Cry on Their Own”. As the scene goes back to black, we are informed that Amy joined the 27 club in July 2011 and is buried next to her Nan. The film closes with her performing said song.

Final Thoughts: Okay, for this movie I remember watching this in theaters last year and only being lukewarm on the movie. Mostly close fans were negative saying that they didn’t get enough. Let me start off with what works. Actress Marisa Abela used her actual voice to mimic Amy’s voice and she did a great job in that department. Also, the movie does a good job recreating her iconic Glastonbury performance as her Grammy performance. Also they do show how the paparazzi obsessions with Amy led to her downfall. But now the problem, the pacing (especially in the beginning) was fast. One scene we are showing her family, next we shown Island Records, then showing her making Stronger than Me all in the span of 25 minutes. Then there’s Super Blake, it’s the same issue I had with the Aaliyah movie that I did a while back. It romanticizes Blake too much, and shows how love stricken Amy was about him. Not to mention the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in this film (that exists with every biopic). In conclusion, it’s not the worst biopic in the world and do respect some of the family wishes in this biopic, it just have me think Amy Winehouse deserve a little better than what we got.