By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

We only saw Amy Winehouse live once at what is now the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, in late 2007 where she arrived late, slurred throughout and didn’t get a great reception from a disappointed crowd.

• Read on for reasons including how this is Amy – the love story

Less than 4 years later she would be dead at just 27 years old and this film explores her short life and rise to stardom without the rigour of Asif Kapadia’s frank documentary Amy.

It’s very much the story of Winehouse’s turbulent relationship with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil and what we most enjoyed about the film was its exploration of why and how she fell in love with him.

Fielder-Civil is played by the charismatic Jack O’Connell (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Apollo Theatre) who walks into Camden’s Good Mixer pub just as Winehouse decides she needs to live her life a little to express herself on what would become her best-loved album, Back To Black.

In a memorable scene a Fred Perry-dressed O’Connell lip-synchs to The Leader Of The Pack as he introduces the jazz-obsessed Winehouse to the musical joys of 60s girl band The Shangri-La’s in a moment that feels pivotal to the music she was about to make.

She’s a magpie – or even an ‘anachronism’ she says baffling her beau – as she idolises her nan, brought to life by the magnificent Lesley Manville (Talking Heads, Bridge Theatre), and uses her as inspiration for the trademark beehive that Winehouse would eventually sport through the most celebrated moments of her career.

It’s easy to root for a heroine who clearly is all about the music and is not interested in money or fame and is actually at her most vulnerable on stage despite a full-throated singing voice that sounded like it belonged to a bygone era.

The film portrays Winehouse’s complicated relationship with her taxi driver father Mitch played by Eddie Marsan and you just wish he was a little less blinded by his daughter’s success and more in tune with her wellbeing.

O’Connell’s Fielder-Civil appears more interested in what Winehouse’s success might mean for him and their on-off relationship might have spawned a classic hit record but you really feel for the star as she reconciles with not being able to have a child by the man she loves.

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson and scriptwriter Matt Greenhalgh present us with a warts-and-all portrayal of a star who ‘ain’t no Spice Girl’ and is bedevilled by media intrusion which can’t have helped her mental health.

Industry‘s Marisa Abela gives us a performance that is never impersonation but is so good that it’s easy to forget she’s not the real Winehouse and when the credits roll you realise just how many classic songs she wrote in a tragically short space of time.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Back To Black Tickets
• Have you seen an Amy Winehouse before and what did you think of this film? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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