'Back to Black' review: Amy Winehouse biopic doesn't tell her whole story

When Amy Winehouse hit the global stage in the mid-2000s, she was the most exciting thing to happen to music in years. At a time when rock was in recycle mode and hip-hop had turned bubble gum, here came this skinny, working-class Brit who harked back to everything dangerous and sexy in music: Ronnie Spector’s beehive, Johnny Rotten’s attitude and a bluesy-boozy voice full of raw emotion. “Rehab,” the 2006 single that rocketed Winehouse to fame, had a funky, snotty hook that summed up her bad-girl persona: “I won’t go, go, go!”

She did go, eventually, but to no avail: Within five years she was dead of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s biographical drama, “Back to Black” — named after the album that helped Winehouse earn five Grammys — pitches itself as a celebration of an artist gone too soon. That’s commendable, but the movie sometimes seems unwilling to confront the ugliness that marred the singer’s life. (The screenplay is by Matt Greenhalgh, who delved much deeper in his Ian Curtis biopic “Control.”)

“Back to Black” has a real find in Marisa Abela, the relative unknown who plays Winehouse. She doesn’t look much like the singer but captures her spirit: A wisp of a thing, not much more than a girl, but with the baggage of an adult. Where Winehouse got such a hole in her soul isn't entirely clear: She has an overindulgent dad (Eddie Marsan as Mitch), a doting grandmother (Leslie Manville as Cynthia Levy) and a checked-out mom (Juliet Cowan as Janis). Even before the pressures of fame, Winehouse has a drinking problem, an eating disorder and a tendency to jump into bed with the nearest bad boy.

The one that steals her heart is Blake Fielder-Civil, a charming ne’er-do-well who becomes her husband and provides much of the heartache that would course through Winehouse's songs. (He’s played by a charismatic Jack O’Connell, of the UK television show “Skins.”) Here is where “Back to Black” may surprise Winehouse fans: In the UK press, Fielder-Civil was cast as a parasitic druggie — the Nancy to Winehouse's Sid — but in this estate-approved movie, he’s highly sympathetic. Not only is he the one who crucially opens her ears to the Shangri-Las (a pivotal influence), he’s also a voice of reason, the first to identify their relationship as “codependent.” Searching the streets for the woman who has clawed his face bloody yet again, Fielder-Civil often seems less like the flame and more like the moth.

“Back to Black” oddly overlooks Mark Ronson, the producer who crafted Winehouse's distinctively retro sound; he's mentioned but never seen. More important, it completely bypasses Winehouse’s final, yearslong spiral that played out before an aghast and fascinated public. (For that crucial part of the story, see “Amy,” the 2015 documentary by Asif Kapadia.) This movie clearly has a great deal of love for its subject. Love, however, was never enough to save her.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman