WINEHOUSE MADE GOOD JAZZ

JAZZ MUSIC HAD NOT SOUNDED SO GOOD IN SUCH A LONG TIME

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The new music biopic is predictably all about the music, but also about a bit more than that.

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson uses an old style juke box found inside a London pub as a narrative device to tell the story of jazz singer, Amy Winehouse.

The narrative starts with Amy performing at an impromptu living room gathering of her family at the age of 18. The family patriarch, Mitch Winehouse, played by Eddie Marsan, can sing a few notes on his own, but he has to learn to make room for his daughter while making a living driving a cab.

Marisa Abela portrays Amy Winehouse as a typical teenager, self isolating in her bedroom with a silent acoustical guitar and an empty songbook.

Amy Winehouse gradually pulls the songs together from personal experiences and the thought based jazz processes, until she has enough material to join the London music scene for her first live performances.

The aesthetics of the film keeps pace with the development of the music. The director’s camera creates several stylized moments of introspective reflection that shift the narrative.

Trouble is on the horizon when the London Jazz singer begins to take the edge off her stage fright with a few drinks.

Self medicating becomes a tragic theme throughout the film, as Winehouse drinks more and more until her personality becomes volatile, which causes more problems.

The young singer begins wondering the London streets, and begins to have blacks out, if she can make it home, resulting in the close knit family discussing the need for an intervention.

The first album has success in London, but the Winehouse management team has doubts about the financial viability of a tour of the United States.

The script tells the story of how the jazz improves with Amy’s life experiences. Love moves the narrative forward as Amy meets Blake. And then the broken love provides an accelerant to the jazz, as Amy heads off to visit the jazz quarter in New York City to create the next album, Back to Black.

Leslie Manville plays Cynthia Winehouse, Amy’s mother. Cynthia gave Amy the beehive hairdo while revealing to Amy that she had terminal cancer.

The love dramatically starts and stops. And the jazz improves.

Abela creates a mirror image of Winehouse as seen through the yellow plastic juke box casing. The actor matches the vocals and stage personality of the character, while providing an emotive performance during the scenes depicting the talented jazz singers personal life.

The biopic film is Winehouse song and performance heavy. But the script contains a balance of the personal moments and the professional career highlights, such as meeting with the management team and finally getting to experience jazz in New York City.

The narrative follows a career retrospective, although brief, from the age of 18 to the singer’s death at 27. And Abela shows good character development.

But the script makes short shrift of important life transitions, such as suddenly Amy has a problem with alcohol, and suddenly she has a chart topping album after a few moments in New York City visiting the legendary jazz club, Birdland.

The development of the other characters around Amy is limited. And the narrative is somewhat linear with a limited exploration of subplots, such as the story about Blake and the story about Mitch.

Taylor-Johnson leaves a lot untold in the background to highlight the central character and the main themes of the film, but this also results in a more limited music video type of experience for her audience.

Back to Black is streaming n Amazon Prime Video.