Director Asif Kapadia took what was the blessing of Amy Winehouse’s family and record company and then relentlessly actually made the film that needed to be made on the life of Amy Winehouse. His biopic wisely throws out any political correctness and eschews a safe approach for an ultimately honest one. The results offer a movie that is hands-down among the year’s best. A film as tough to sit through as 12 Years A Slave, Amy could go down as the quintessential tragic rendering of the abhorrent cost of fame in this unforgiving age. At once monstrous and life-affirming, Amy is the rare film that elicits many an excruciating reaction while also rendering an odd catharsis. Winehouse here on one level is the indomitable beacon of a pop star. Except for her amazing voice and songwriting, she seems just like you and me in so many ways, yet is ultimately destined for tragedy.
Authentically rough around the edges, Amy takes advantage of a wealth of archival footage, some of it as grainy as cellphone shots. When we first encounter Amy she’s but a mere middle-class Jewish kid from suburban London, but what a kid! It doesn’t take long to tell she’s the kind of person who, while loosy-goosey on the outside, is internally devastated by her own intense feelings. The footage of her presenting her demo song to her record company zings with goose-bump-producing edge. Yet her likability is far more primitive than anything tangibly calculated.
At times the film Amy admirably seems like a home movie that is as unsure of itself as Amy the jazz chanteuse is of herself while climbing a gradual reluctant ladder to stardom–and infamy. Kapadia finds his way by keeping his aim on the truth beneath Winehouse’s constantly mocked public persona. From the outset afraid of fame, our heroine can only hope to survive what becomes a paparazzi-laden existence at a time when tenderness of any sort would have been a welcome palliative. Yet, as Kapadia makes clear, compassion was very scarce in Winehouse’s life. Her husband, seemingly eager to attach to her gravy train, introduces the already heavy-drinking Winehouse to hard drugs. Since she’s bound to him with a clearly obsessive attachment, it’s about as fatal a relationship as she could have encountered.
Then there’s her dad. He of the famous “I don’t think rehab is for everyone–Amy’s fine.” Toward the end of her life, we watch her smartly get herself away from the pressures for a months-long sojourn to St. Lucia, only to have her dad show up with his own huckstering agenda complete with a camera crew. It’s enough to give us the heaves…speaking of which, Winehouse’s demise at the age of 27 was as much a product of her bulimia as of her addiction to alcohol and drugs.
Hats off to Kapadia. Winehouse’s dad has an issue that he somehow was portrayed inaccurately in the film. As my own dad used to say, “Go pound sand.” To which could be added–let the record stand for itself. While Winehouse may certainly be faulted for being her own worst enemy, the enormous burden provided by her many enablers was a ravaging, rough mountain to climb. Throughout the film, her dauntlessness looms as the starkest possible contrast to the madness surrounding her.
See this film if it kills you–and, emotionally speaking, it probably will. You’ll never forget the scenes when a confused and disoriented Amy tries to wade through the deplorable paparazzi–a sad symbol for our aggravated era of nonstop, constant social media. Had Amy been born in any other time, she’d likely still be alive and well. There’s only one worse image that lingers. More inane than even the brutally insentive paparazzi, we’re treated to an ugly Jay Leno joke about her that holds forth as a prototypical example of I-don’t-give-a-fuck coldness. It’s enough to make you nuts.