Get the latest gossip

Back to Black review – woozy Amy Winehouse biopic buoyed by extraordinary lead performance

Sam Taylor-Johnson’s best film to date is more interested in romance and creativity than demons or blame

O’Connell can’t help being a smart, capable screen presence and makes Blake a lot more sympathetic and less rodenty than he appeared in real life – and yet part of the (reasonable) point of the film is that he was a human being, afraid that Amy would leave him for another celebrity, and that media images are misleading. Photograph: Landmark Media/AlamyPerhaps any movie about Winehouse is going to suffer in comparison with Asif Kapadia’s compelling archive-mosaic documentary Amy from 2015, which delivered the woman herself and also gave a clearer idea of her demanding musicianship and professionalism, far from the tabloid caricature of nonstop drugginesss. Back to Black is essentially a gentle, forgiving film and there are other, tougher, bleaker ways to put Winehouse’s life on screen – but Abela conveys her tenderness, and perhaps most poignantly of all her youth, so tellingly at odds with that tough image and eerily mature voice.

Get the Android app