Why Back to Black completely changed what I thought I knew about Amy Winehouse

And the piece of the puzzle I never had when it came to understanding her

Like many Amy Winehouse fans, I was nervous but hopeful when I heard that her story was going to be retold in a new biopic, Back to Black. 

I’m 34 so I grew up in the era of the weekly glossies. Paris, Nicole, Lindsay, Amy; these were faces I looked forward to seeing each week after I walked to the corner shop for a Twix and a magazine. We had the internet back then but we didn’t use it in the way we do now. You might have held up the landline to chat to your friends on MSN for an hour, but you still found out about your favourite celebrities every week in paper pages. 

Amy’s story is one of the most tragic of our generation. Here was a girl completely in her prime. She was totally different to anyone else we were listening to back then, a self-made five-time Grammy Award winner, and whose crimes seemed no more despicable than having fallen in love. The entire world was fascinated by her, and there was a level of intrusion on her life that was deeply uncomfortable. What may have started by the press as a weekly effort to show us her outfits, full of polka dots, bee hives, high heels and ballet pumps, soon became a witch hunt. Before long the headlines took a turn, wanting instead to capture her in her lowest and most intimate moments, and all in the name of entertainment. 

Back then, most headlines revolved around her relationship with Blake. We saw the highs and lows of each discussion, every tender embrace, and he was a huge part of the narrative around her. Even Mitch, her father, was well known as part of the Amy collective, immortalised forever in the lyrics of the Rehab chorus. But someone I don’t feel that we knew quite so much about was her beloved grandmother, Cynthia. 

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see an early screening of Back to Black. In January, when I first heard about the film, I reached out to the agent of the hair and makeup director, Peta Dunstall, to see if they would let me interview her. Hair and makeup play such a crucial part in Amy’s story, and I was desperate to know how Peta would undertake the task of recreating her. The publicity team kindly took a chance on me (I had no relevant portfolio to prove my expertise, but I gave them my word this meant a lot to me, and they believed me). I took to a tiny room and wandered past guests like a characteristically smiley Edith Bowman to take my seat in Soho’s Dolby Studios for a first watch.

Back to Black tells Amy’s story from the very beginning. It celebrates her traditional Jewish upbringing, her relationships with her family and professional team, and touches significantly on her special bond with her grandmother, Cynthia. 

What I didn’t know at the height of her fame was how deeply close she was to Cynthia. Her grandmother was incredibly special to her, and sadly passed away just before her addiction really took hold. It was in this moment of the film that I realised how little of Amy’s story we were actually told. Why didn’t the press explain this a bit more at the time? We were watching the demise of a poor girl in the throws of grief, heartbreak, and trying to navigate what seemed like an overnight catapult into worldwide fame. You could argue that none of these things were any of our business, and of course they weren’t. But it seems brutally unfair to have paraded endless photos in front of us of a young girl in hardship, all the while failing to mention the crucial details that had led her to find the coping mechanisms that she did. Though Amy was incredibly loved, I can’t help but feel there would have been an entirely different level of sympathy towards her if we had known quite how much she was dealing with. 

Think about the Crown on Netflix. Even though it’s lovely to watch something that recreates moments that you remember, we will never, ever know what happens behind the closed doors of the Monarchy. Add to that, each time a new series debuts, you can guarantee that someone close to the family will be sat opposite Lorraine explaining that the Royal family completely refutes everything being said. I think if you go into Back to Black with that mindset, you will truly enjoy this story. 

There are some tender moments in the film that really stayed with me. In one scene, Amy sits at Cynthia’s dressing table, complete with a little Fred Perry top that we’d all remember, and is getting herself ready to fly to America to record with Mark Ronson. I don’t want to say too much but I had a sense of foreboding in this scene that something bad was going to happen, and it did. There were also some joyous moments that I didn’t expect to feel warmly towards, like the night she met Blake. I have to admit, for those of us who grew up at the same time as Amy, it feels like particularly thoughtful casting from Nina Gold to have given his role to Skins’ bad boy Cook. Speaking of casting, I thought Marisa Abela played the role of Amy beautifully. I’m not sure the posters or trailer have done quite enough justice to how easily you find yourself in the mindset that you are watching Amy. There was a particular point where she gazed pensively into her jukebox and her profile made for an uncanny resemblance.

Something I felt a bit disappointed not to see in the film was an exploration of her relationship with her close girl friends. After the screening, keen to devour any and all Amy stories, I found a lovely documentary on BBC iPlayer called Reclaiming Amy. Released in 2021, this was a collection of interviews with Amy’s mom, dad, and several close friends, all keen to share the truth about Amy. The Film4 film, Amy, had been released six years beforehand, and both her mom and dad believed it to be a misleading representation of her life. Though it was populated with lots of unseen Amy footage (and for that reason, I think would still be a lovely watch for true fans), her mom said that she felt they portrayed ‘a caricature’ of Amy. Reclaiming Amy, on the other hand, had their seal of approval, and gave them a chance to tell her story in their own way. There were some brief mentions of the girls in the film, but I think outside of the parameters of a 2-hour life story their impact was much more profound, and deserves to be considered when understanding just how powerful her support network was. Her friend Naomi curated a collection of articles, photos and stories about her called Beyond Black which I bought after seeing the film, and I would really recommend reading that if you are hoping to learn a bit more about her. Also, one of my favourite creators, Tefi, made a series about Amy’s life on TikTok a few years ago which you can find here.

@hellotefiAmy Winehouse part one ##amywinehouse

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The idea of a biopic can be daunting at the best of times, not to mention in this case when the subject matter is so sensitive and tragic. But instead of seeing this film as yet another intrusion on her privacy, I think it may help to challenge some of the wrongs of times gone by. I really think it will encourage the viewer to question what they thought they knew about Amy. At the time of me writing this, from my freezing cold living room, it was the worldwide premiere last night, and I saw that her mom and dad, Mitch and Janis, went together, which spoke volumes about how carefully I think this film has been made.

I lost my aunty to her addiction when I was a teenager, and learned in the years afterwards just how much pain she was in because of heartbreak in various forms. I personally hope that Back to Black will serve as a tool to help people understand a bit more deeply the power of addiction. No one battling an addiction is doing so without a difficult story to tell, and even someone like Amy with a close family, a tight-knit friendship group, great support system and sophisticated resources, is not immune to the dark, all-consuming cloud of addiction. 

Back to Black is in cinemas on Friday 12th April, and seeing as they told her story with such sensitivity and grace, I’d really recommend you go and see it.