An old biscuit tin is filled with nostalgic family photos and the bubble writing of a young Amy Winehouse.
Can I borrow your memory box?
she asks her grandmother, Cynthia, who replies, Only if you look after it.
Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features
How could they memorialize someone whose much-documented life is so memorable today, so accessible online?
Whose story was so well told in Asif Kapadias documentaryAmy?
How to do Amy, whose unguarded nature has previously been so preyed upon, some justice?
Director Sam Taylor-Johnson with Marisa Abela, who stars as Amy Winehouse inBack to Black.
Her classic hits, all played, are presented as if her talent was in feeling rather than crafting.
Did they not have the guts to expose those leeches in all their glory?
Abela had an unenviable task: to embody someone with a unique fierceness and a still-besotted fanbase.
Abelas singing voice is remarkably similar to Amys at many points.
In general, though, she speaks with a light breathiness rather than Amys more guttural, lispy delivery.
Abelas plaintive demeanor and wide, open face makes for a much more vulnerable and softer Amy.
Thatd be too complicated, too unforgivable, and too Amy.
Its a passable film, and tellsastory, but I wonder what new angle it offers.
Is its purpose to give the men in Amys life an easy ride?
Those who, perhaps, arent worth winning over.
I have no idea.
Nope: its the women involved, it seems, who are at fault.
It makes me wonder how Amy would have been treated today.
Yes, some things have moved on.
