Watch The First Teaser For Amy Winehouse Biopic Back To Black
There’s been talk of an Amy Winehouse biopic for years; it honestly started not long after her death in 2011. In 2015, the same year that the Oscar-winning Asif Kapadia documentary Amy came out, Noomi Rapace was in the running to play Winehouse in a movie. That project didn’t come together, but this year will see the release of Back To Black, a long-gestating film about Winehouse, made with the support of her family. Its first teaser arrives today.
Authorized biopics like Back To Black are always a double-edged sword. The filmmakers get to use the artist’s music, but when estates get involved, they tend to push party-line versions of the stories. Back To Black comes to us from Sam Taylor-Johnson, who previously made Little Man, Fifty Shades Of Grey, and A Million Little Pieces. Industry star Marisa Abela plays Amy Winehouse, and Jack O’Connell, who was just in Ferrari, plays her husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Eddie Marsan, Juliet Cowan, and Lesley Manville also star.
Judging by the trailer, Back To Black will hit all the Amy Winehouse story beats that you’d expect: The powerful artistry that reflects the pain behind it, the sudden rise to fame, the struggles with addiction and attention, the tragic end. We hear her warn har handlers that she “ain’t no Spice Girl,” which is a little on-the-nose but which does sound like something that the real Winehouse would say. Marisa Abela really looks like Amy Winehouse, and she sounds like her, too, at when she’s speaking. (I don’t know whether Abela sings or lip-syncs her parts.) It’s impossible to say whether the movie will be any good, but I know that I’ll see it. Check out the teaser below.
Back To Black is in American theaters 5/10.