Amy **** (2015, Amy Winehouse) – Movie Review

Director Asif Kapadia’s 2015 documentary Amy is extremely well done, informative and moving, but also very depressing and upsetting. Amy Winehouse had it all – an incredible jazz voice, the ability to turn her emotional pain into clever lyrics and song, and millions in the bank and millions of fans, as well as endless paparazzi and detractors – and threw it all away.

Unfortunately she was really insecure and almost childlike, and had a damaged, addictive inner core, though she had that hidden behind her aggressive, sassy, sexy personality. While being equally ambitious and talented, she seemed to be wilful, self-destructive and not always to choose her friends, lovers and colleagues carefully.

Hackney-born BAFTA winning film-maker Kapadia (last film Senna in 2010) carefully sifts through the available archival footage (much of it previously unseen), and adds new interview material, much of it just voice-overs, as well as unheard music tracks.

This is the unhappy story of Amy in her own words, images and songs. It comes to celebrate her, and mourn her passing. It seems to suggest that she was let down by various people, though it’s careful not to put the blame on anyone in particular, and just let the people involved speak and act for themselves. It’s perhaps hard really to blame her family and friends. What, though, were the professionals doing for her? Not enough apparently.

The downside of such films is they can be accused of cashing in on the whole fame thing that destroyed Amy. But this one overcomes that by its sensitivity and credibility. It’s a difficult job well done, though whether it’s a 100% accurate a picture of Amy and her life is open to question.

Amy’s father Mitch Winehouse has said that Amy’s fans should consider seeing the film for the rare, previously unseen, archive footage of his daughter, but should pay no attention to the film’s general portrayal of her, which he has called ‘preposterous’.

Amy’s family and friends agreed to work with the film-makers, gave them access to hours of archive footage and gave interviews. But they began to feel they were being misrepresented, that the negative aspects of Amy’s life were receiving most attention, and that the footage had ended up giving an inaccurate version of Amy’s story, especially in her last three years.

Maybe no documentary can give the whole picture, just try to tell a version of the truth as the makers see it.

It won the 2016 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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Hackney-born BAFTA winning film-maker Kapadia.