This documentary about the late Amy Winehouse is dignified and done via voiceovers over photos and videos of the star who was no stranger to controversy. It shows Amy’s talent and her unravelling volatility, her confrontational interaction with the press and her increasingly precarious unkempt existence. She had innocence and talent before her de-stabilising addictions took over. The director views Amy uncritically and perceives the media as Amy’s adversaries. Amy was always unignorable but it is clear she had a need that was impossible to satisfy. The scruffily vulpine Amy sang demotic poetry but acted out due to family issues. Despite her slurred singing style she had talent but threw it away on drugs and her vile husband Blake.
She was in need of protection, nurturing and development but as things became fraught she developed an appalling image and got mockery, societal condemnation, a terrible trashing and was exploited. Amy and Blake had a toxic relationship that worsened her drug use, bulimia and lazy diction. Her parents felt no human imperative to help her as her worsening drug use and love of ugly tattoos made it clear things were seriously wrong. Her father, Mitch, comes across as a user, Blake is a pig and things head toward her inevitable death. This was okay. But why was it necessary to show the body bag?
Best Lines:
“She looks like a campaign poster for neglected horses.”
“She’s like a mad person.”
“Please be good.”
“Wouldn’t have any fake horns.”
“You sound so common.”
“Having to be carried home in a wheelbarrow.”
“My Blake incarcerated.”
“Be nice to me on camera then.”
“She needed someone to say no.”
“An honest recording.”