User Reviews

The cover story of this week's edition of music magazine NME is: 'Who killed Amy?' It would have been a perfect title for this superb documentary. I went to see it, hoping it would answer two questions. One: could Amy Winehouse's death have been prevented in any way? Two: if so, by whom? The film provides crystal clear answers to both questions. One: no, it probably couldn't have been prevented - at best it could have been postponed. Two: several members of her entourage have probably contributed to her downward spiral. Her father, who wasn't there when he should be and was there when he shouldn't. Her husband, who encouraged her drugs abuse and seems to be an utterly despicable person. And the press, who relentlessly haunted her and enjoyed every misstep in her life. But the documentary also makes one thing very clear: in the end there's only one person responsible for Amy Winehouse's death: Amy Winehouse.

Apart from providing a stunning insight in Winehouse's short life and career, 'Amy' is also a great movie from a cinematographic perspective. The unique feature is that it consists almost entirely of existing footage. It's absolutely incredible what the film makers (with the help of the Winehouse family) have unearthed. Lots of home videos, from her youth as well as from her later life, interviews, recording sessions, telephone conversations, even voice mail messages. Sometimes it almost feels uncomfortable to view images, clearly made for personal use, on a giant screen. But they are extremely revealing. There were numerous moments when I felt like saying: wow! The very first moments of the film are almost worth the ticket price. We see an amateur home video of a birthday party: 14 year old girls giggling and fooling around, until suddenly one of them starts singing 'Happy Birthday' with a voice and technique that seem to belong to Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald. We also see Winehouse commenting after her first single has sold 800 copies, we see a hilarious scene during a holiday in Spain, but we also see her waving a bag of marijuana in front of the camera, we see her arguing with her father, visiting her incarcerated husband, and in one haunting scene, lying on the floor in what seems a drunken stupor.

'Amy' tells an extremely sad story. It's told in all honesty: it shows how incredibly talented Winehouse was, and how dedicated to her music, but also how insecure and self-destructive. When one of her childhood friends tells how she felt when, in the end, Winehouse wasn't her old self anymore, she almost starts sobbing in the microphone. I have no doubt each and every one in the cinema theatre felt the same way after seeing this film.

I remember when Amy Winehouse died back in 2011 it had a certain inevitability about it yet was still shocking and very sad. The media had made a meal out of her problems documenting them at every given opportunity and her increasingly emancipated appearance was publicised for all to see, courtesy of the lowlifes of the paparazzi. Hers was life in a goldfish bowl by the end and for a person who never wanted fame in the first place; this made her life all the more difficult. What complicated matters so fatally was that in amongst all of this, she had a predisposition for drink and drugs. The combination sent her spiralling on a downward trajectory.

This documentary about her has been made by Asif Kapadia who directed the film Senna (2010) which remains one of the most highly respected documentaries of recent years. When you consider that that film was also about someone at the top of their field who died young in a dramatic and sudden manner, you could say that there are some similarities between both stories. But in reality the Amy Winehouse story is a much darker one, with its central character going on an extended path of self-destruction. And one in which we in the audience know only too well how it ends. The film is made up of home video and TV clips of Winehouse and fills in details with recollections of people who were close to her in the form of voice-overs, as opposed to a more traditional talking heads format. After the release of her definitive album Back to Black in 2006, Winehouse basically retreated and conducted next to no interviews which of course posed the film-makers some problems and the effect is that as the film goes on she becomes increasingly remote and we feel like we know her less.

The contrast between the Amy of the early years to the one latterly seen is pretty pronounced. Her appearance became more intense and she quickly covered herself with an assortment of harsh tattoos. This phase coincided with her downward spiral with drink and drugs. It seems pretty clear that her attachment to her husband Blake Fielder was inextricably linked to this. He came across as a hanger-on who led her onto hard drugs and who then had little self-interest in getting her off them. The problem was that she loved him and it was this that made the situation so destructive. Throughout the film, as her songs play, her lyrics are displayed on screen and it is obvious that much of her music was based on highly personal emotional songs that constantly were sourced from her experiences in relationships. So much of her success was derived from this well of emotion but it was one that could equally destabilise her. This was only exacerbated by her bouts of depression and her problematic relationship with her dad.

There is no getting away with the fact that this is a sad story; one that is all the more shaming when you consider that it played out so visibly in the public eye. But the public eye is very uncaring unfortunately and all too often empathises when it is far too late. But this film also captures the voice and the humour, so integral to Amy Winehouse. And so while it is impossible to ignore the tragedy, the beauty is here too. This was, after all, a very singular artist whose roots were in jazz, which is hardly a music for lightweights. Amy Winehouse was a proper talent who made music entirely on her own terms. If I was to criticise mildly it would be to say that the film itself might be marginally too long and perhaps goes over some ground more than it has to. But mainly this is ultimately a very worthy attempt to tell what is a complex and contrasting story to the screen with all its darkness and light.

This is a fascinating and heartbreakingly sad and dark depiction of the life of a brilliant singer. It's a touching testament to Winehouse's career, relationships and ups and downs, and it takes a very dramatic but powerful approach to telling the story in Asif Kapadia's inventive documentary style.

Kapadia directed my favourite film of all time, Senna, which I have, after countless viewings, found to be incredibly powerfully emotional, consistently exciting and, most of all, stunningly original.

Originality is a hard thing to come by in the documentary genre, but Kapadia, in both Senna and Amy, uses this fascinating style of presenting a documentary in the form of a narrative drama to make it a more engrossing and captivating experience, something that works so well, and makes for an absolutely brilliant watch.

The story of Amy Winehouse is a bittersweet one, and this film does that reality justice. On the one hand, it does a fantastic job of showing her fun-loving and upbeat personality in the years before the health problems started, and it really gives you a lasting image of a completely different Amy Winehouse to the one that almost lived in infamy towards the end of the 2000s.

However, on the other hand, this film is quite brutal and dark to watch due to its very realistic depiction of the impact of drugs, drinking and bad relationships on her life. In the second act of the film, Kapadia does a stunning job of showing how Winehouse's life completely disintegrated due to all of these problems, and it is a truly striking thing to watch.

Despite the darkness of that part of the story, one thing that remains positive throughout is how the film celebrates Winehouse's incredible talent for jazz singing. It interlinks the events of her life with her earliest and most famous singles and turns them into strongly symbolic demonstrations of her deepest emotions and thoughts.

Overall, this is a brilliantly intriguing documentary that will move you to the core. It uses a fantastically inventive narrative style to create a powerful story that shows so clearly the bittersweet nature of the life of an amazing singer.

www.themadmovieman.com

A haunting, heartbreaking and stunningly brilliant film from Senna director Asif Kapadia, which takes us into the confidence of Amy Winehouse, as the bolshy, big-voiced, jazzy Jewish girl from North London becomes a megastar, while her personal demons, her relationship with a drug addict, and a ravenous, amoral press proceed to rip her to shreds.

Thanks to an abundance of revelatory home video footage, soundtracked by incisive interviews, we see her not only as the beehived, cat- eyed chanteuse or the alarmingly ribbed tabloid quarry, tumbling out of a club at 3am, but as a shy, spotty teen with a seductive offhand confidence in her vocal gift.

I'm not an enormous fan of Winehouse's music, I think because her deeply personal writing and distinctive, expressive voice tended to be masked by such contrived, Americanised pastiche – trading first on '30s jazz and then '60s girl groups – but the portrait that emerges here is uncompromising, thrilling and frequently devastating: of an unhappy girl equipped with a massive talent, but none of the stability or serenity to deal with the perpetual media storm that her success brought upon her.

We see stand-ups and TV presenters laughing at her bulimia and drug abuse, her management pushing her out of rehab and onto foreign stages, and – in the second half – a rapacious, vulturous paparazzi incessantly stalking her, an essential decency chillingly absent. If that was my job, I think I would struggle to watch this film and think: "Yes, what I am doing with my life is essentially fine."

By contrast, Kapadia's film is quite beautifully lacking in sensationalism. Though it essentially doubles an indictment of a society almost entirely lacking in basic compassion and empathy, it's a work that possesses both virtues in apparently limitless amounts, surely compressing and simplifying an impossibly complex narrative, but attaining something that seems awfully like the truth – and apparently is, according to her closest friends.

Amy is a tough watch, but it feels essential, not just for its vivid picture of a fascinating, deeply troubled young woman, but also for its wider significance: as a plea for people to stop being so horribly selfish, to stop seeing excess and illness as 'rock and roll' and drug abuse as a joke, and for the media to realise that if it wants to paint itself as a crusading Fifth Estate, then some basic humanity wouldn't go amiss.

This is one of the best documentaries that I have seen because its not meant to be flashy and "entertaining". It is a very honest and emotional movie with personal clips that show her rise to fame and her feelings about it. One of the biggest reasons why I loved it was because all the different sides of her life were presented in the movie. I loved how all the opposing sides agreed to come together and make this amazing movie. Her parents, managers, ex husband were all included, even though they probably hate one another in real life. I also liked how they included full songs in the documentary. I was a big fan of Amy Winehouse before but this movie made me appreciate her personality and clever poetry. Highly recommended. trust.

This documentary is presented in an unusual way: using only footage of Amy's home videos, photos, interviews, live performances and voice-overs only for interviews from Amy and the people who knew her best. It certainly makes a nice change from the numerous camera interviews, mixed with footage of the documentary's subject. It's intimate, raw, sympathetic and heartbreaking. With so much footage of her, in the end, you feel like you really knew her. And it's absolutely gut-wrenching when she dies.

Amy's father Mitch was very critical of the movie, saying it put him in a bad light. But in truth, he already did that himself. Although the film shows him as a loving father that wants what's best for Amy, it does show him as someone who could have done more for her. Other times, he takes a misstep in trying to get his daughter off drugs, such as insisting she doesn't go to rehab the first time, then the second time allowing both her and her drug addicted husband Blake (I curse the day she ever met him) to go clean in the same clinic, which results in them going on a horrific binge later. And another, such as bringing in a horde of cameras on holiday, when the entire purpose was for Amy to get away from all of the cameras and publicity.

Like Kurt Cobain, she was a fragile human being who couldn't handle the fame. If one doesn't have it in their blood to withstand the pressure, they won't survive. Tragically, neither Kurt nor Amy could handle it.

This brilliant bio-doc paints an entirely different picture of Amy Winehouse, other than the nasty tabloids story that hampered her over the years. The tense moments when the paparazzi assaults Amy whenever she goes out got me really annoyed. This picture is one of a loving, talented, rebellious, music loving young Jewish girl - caught up in the dangerous parts of the music industry and ultimately crippled by addiction.

10 out of 10

"Amy" is a sledgehammer 2015 documentary portrait of Grammy-winning British pop singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse that gives new, poignant and heartbreaking meaning to the phrase, "Hello, I must be going."

Even though we begin watching this film knowing that Winehouse died in 2011 at the age of 27 from alcohol poisoning, by the time we reach its conclusion we find ourselves praying that the ending will be different, that she will still be around when we leave the theater.

We've taken a revealing, involving, moving journey that we don't want to end.

Director Asif Kapadia opens the film with Winehouse, about 14 at the time and living in suburban northwest London, mugging on video with some friends, including her lifelong buds Juliette Ashby and Lauren Gilbert, apparently at the birthday party of one of those girls.

When Amy opens her mouth to sing, effortlessly, "Happy Birthday," and the rich, low tones of a Judy Garland mixed with the soulful, meaning-packed wail of a Billie Holiday come out, we get the director's point instantly: This was an entertainer for the ages.

Using more than 100 interviews artfully mixed with archival footage that ranges from childhood home movies of Winehouse to performances both personal and public, "Amy" will satisfy her fans while informing those not familiar with her work how very much they missed.

Among those interviewed are Winehouse's manager, Nick Shymansky _ who took on the singer when she was 16 and he was only 19 _ Yasiin Bey (also known as Mos Def), iconic singer Tony Bennett (shown in a tender, heartrending recording session with Winehouse), her father Mitchell Winehouse (in a slashing mini-portrait of a parent gone awry), pals Ashby and Gilbert, and music executives, her ex-husband, a boyfriend, a publicist and a one-time bodyguard.

You'll also see here the likes of Jay Leno, who welcomed her with open arms on his "Tonight Show" when she was at the top of her game, but had no qualms about shafting her later in his monologue when she was having problems with drugs. Heartless and shameful don't begin to cover it.

Leno's use _ and discarding of _ Winehouse also is a stark metaphor for how her peers and the public alike seem to use then trash celebrities at times when they most need us as fellow human beings.

Hearing Winehouse bounce through her song "Rehab," which opens with the lyric "They tried to make me rehab but I said 'No, no, no,'" is an ugly reminder of how troubled she was and how neglectful and complicit we all were in not insisting more be done for her.

"Amy" is important both in setting the record straight about Winehouse and also in warning us not to commit the same grievous mistake with yet another celebrity.

("Amy," which has a running time of 2 hours and eight minutes, is rated R _ under 17, requires accompanying parent or adult guardian _ and contains drug and alcohol use.)

"Amy" The Amy Winehouse Documentary is brilliant. It's sad, depressing, interesting and very insightful. You feel like a fly on the wall as you watch raw video footage throughout that shows you that there were various factors that lead to her Drug addiction and untimely death. It shows you that she wasn't just a dumb junkie but from a young age she was a very mentally troubled person. She had a lack of discipline at a young age. Her Father neglected her as a child. But he had no problem using her as a meal ticket once she became famous. She had various mental issues such as depression and bulimia. Whilst I don't condone Drugs the doc does show you how and why people try and get hooked on them. The Doc is very fair in showing the good side and bad side of Amy. Ultimately it leaves it up to you to make your own judgement about her. My only gripe is that Amy's final Boyfriend Reg Traviss isn't in it at all. This is a huge omission considering he was with her until she died. Overall it is an amazing documentary that is thought provoking and will create a debate between people. RIP Amy 9/10

I saw this at the NXNE festival in Toronto last night. The movie was quite long, I must admit I was exhausted when I left. Not in a negative way, but overwhelmed at everything I had seen. The director had a lot of material to give us and he didn't hold back. The scene that I found the most powerful was the one in the recording studio with Tony Bennett, it was pure magic. I can't say that I followed Amy Winehouse, or was very familiar with her work, other than the song 'Rehab'. I did love her hairdo, it reminded me of the Ronettes. I am always fascinated by artists and how they develop.

We get a close up of Amy's artistic process. Her power was in her ability to constantly come up with song material that resonated with her at the deepest level and put those words to music. Combine this with a unaffected personality and an amazing ability to connect with an audience and you have a true force of nature. On the negative side, she had to deal with her personal daemons from her childhood. The tragedy was her use of drugs and alcohol. One gets the feeling from the movie of an almost inevitability of her path, but I guess that is always debatable.

Asif Kapadia's documentary tells a familiar tale of the life and death of Amy Winehouse - a precocious talent from North London with a unique vocal and songwriting talent destroyed by a combination of willful manipulation, drugs and drink. The same could also be said for other great jazz singers of the past, notably Billie Holiday (whose voice often seems eerily similar to Winehouse's).

With the help of childhood friends and archive interviews, Kapadia paints a picture of a Jewish girl growing up in an unstable household. Her father Mitch had an affair when Amy was still a baby, and finally left home when she was eight or nine. Her mother Janis admitted that she was really too weak to keep Amy under control: Amy grew up doing virtually what she wanted with little or no authority to restrain her.

By her teenage years it was clear that Amy had a unique talent for singing and writing songs reflecting her various angst. Signed to a contract by Island Records, she gradually rose to stardom, while keeping her feet on the ground; she was always someone most at home with writing and recording music. Video footage from the period shows her enjoying herself with her companions as they traveled to various gigs. At heart she was a girl wanting to enjoy the experience of growing up and adjusting to the world.

Things only really started going wrong once she crossed the Rubicon from well-known jazz artist into international star. Feted on television in both Britain and the United States, it seemed as if the world was her oyster. Yet it was also evident that she was too much influenced by hangers-on wanting a piece of her. Her husband Blake Fielder, a feckless junkie, introduced her to hard drugs; a succession of ineffectual managers including Monte Lipman failed to shield her from the media; and her father came back into her life as someone more interested in making money than protecting his daughter. Kapadia's film suggests that perhaps her father was most at fault for his daughter's decline; in one sequence he brings a camera-crew to St. Lucia, thereby ruining Amy's attempts to enjoy some kind of peace away from the media.

Amy's troubled life is juxtaposed with performances of her greatest songs, whose lyrics are put on screen as she sings them. It's clear that she wrote from bitter experience; the only way she could make sense of it was to write about it. We get the sense that Amy performed first and foremost for herself.

Her untimely death at the age of twenty-seven remains something of a mystery. From the evidence presented in this film, we are left uncertain as to whether she took her own life or whether she died accidentally. Given the prison-like existence she led for the last five years of her life, culminating in the now-notorious occasion when she failed to perform at a Belgrade concert, it's tempting to think that she had had enough.

Few of her close associates come out with any credit as a result of this film. It's almost as if they wanted to exploit her, and when she died, they ascribed the tragedy to fate rather than admitting responsibility for it. This is especially true of Mitch.

The ending is almost unbearably poignant. It seems such a sad waste of a unique talent. Nonetheless at least we have her musical legacy in the form of her recordings, both live and in the studio.

It's difficult to sum up a celebrity's entire life in a two-hour film, even if that person died at a young age. Placing that person's public moments in the proper context, showing some of the private moments to provide insight, revealing influences, hopes, fears and struggles to provide understanding and digging deep enough to suggest lessons the audience can learn from that celebrity's life – it's a lot to cover. Filmmakers have to decide what their focus should be, what to include, what to delve into, what to summarize and what to leave out. In addition, if the film is a documentary, they need adequate video and audio to tell the aspects of the story that they've chosen to tell. If they don't have video, they have a radio program and if they don't have audio, they have a book. It's all those challenges the makers of "Amy" (R, 2:08) had to confront. They did it fairly well on the surface, but could have dug deeper.

British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in her London home on July 23, 2011, at the age of 27, a sad ending that gives this documentary on her life much of its power. The filmmakers know that and focus on Winehouse's rise to fame and her struggles with being famous, all of which can be said to have led to her death at the same age that also we lost musicians Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain (the so-called "27 Club"). Those who are drawn to Winehouse's story because of the tragedy of her premature demise will indeed get some answers as the film discusses the struggles she had dealing with the price of fame and her resulting problems with drugs, alcohol and bulimia nervosa. Those who are fans of her music will get a generous helping of stories about her rise to fame and samplings of her music.

Director Asif Kapadia was fortunate enough to have an abundance of material to use in telling Winehouse's story. No narrator is needed, as interviews with the singer's family, friends and music industry professionals provide the necessary exposition. But these are not talking heads. Almost all the soundbites are short and are edited in as voice-overs, with on-screen fonts identifying the speakers. The film's visuals include home video of Winehouse, from her teens onward, news clips, television appearances and concert footage. In the scenes of her musical performances, the words to her songs are subtly and artfully presented on the screen as she sings. Throughout the film, dates and locations also appear on the screen to provide the necessary sense of time and place, while the transitions to different events and periods in the subject's life are otherwise seamless.

"Amy" provides a very good summary of Winehouse's career, personality and life as she transitioned from "just a girl who can sing" to a worldwide celebrity, but it should have gone farther. Some of the time spent delving into her personal relationships could have been surrendered in favor of revealing aspects of her life which were almost completely ignored, such as the evolution of her sense of style, her significant charity work and her efforts on behalf of other musicians. We also could've done with fewer details and soundbites concerning her drug and alcohol abuse, if it meant more analysis of who or what was to blame for her problems. In spite of missed opportunities to make itself more meaningful, this film is a revealing personal portrait of a unique talent and a lost soul who died much too young. "B"

"You should be tougher mum, you're not strong enough to say stop." Amy Winehouse

Don't we all wish this gifted British jazz singer had heeded her advice to her beloved mother? But she didn't and lost her young life to drugs, alcohol, relentless fame, and a father, husband, manager and a whole menagerie of hangers on, whose motives were suspicious at the least. Or, maybe I should say her father, Nick, is only the most obvious sinner as he gains a reality TV show and allows his daughter to perform even in the face of her decline.

Although Amy the documentary doesn't give anyone a pass, it does show Amy's slow descent into dependencies that can only in the end be characterized as her own. The strength of the doc, however, is not to blame everyone except by implication and their very words, some of which are voiced over rather than through boring talking heads.

The first half of the film is a glorious catalogue of her young days at home and then early on singing jazz. Her tight dresses and fab legs don't even distract when we watch the essence of soul emerge out of her voice and face. Even I, barely knowledgeable in the genre, could spy greatness in her every breath.

As if to remind us of her genius, she comes back from rehab to briefly exonerate herself by singing a duet with Tony Bennett. Her diffidence with that icon next to her is as endearing as it is appropriate, given his stature in the business and her relative inexperience. Yet, Bennett himself acknowledges her gifts and compares her to the greats like Ella Fitzgerald.

Amy is director Asif Kapadia's unforgettable achievement, one of the finest music documentaries ever. However, it is not an easy ride, especially when we can feel ever so slightly complicit as we contribute to the crushing adulation of celebrity and unvarnished love of capitalism. Some like Amy Winehouse need to back away from both before it kills them.

AMY was quite something, really affected me. 10 out of 10.

Tony Bennett quoted in this outstanding documentary. ''Slow down, you are too important. Life teaches you really how to live it if you can live long enough''.

That quote is something I intend to follow. The scene where Amy sings with Tony is remarkable, her singing with her idol. really touching.

I always felt Amy's voice and now I can see her shining talent as a lyricist too. Such a strong mature voice yet such a fragile person. Love, drink, drugs just shook her to the core. You see how nasty and deranged she turned when high. Not pleasant to see, but you also see her shining witty side.

Her dad came across as someone who jumped in to Manage her life far too late - only when fame and money came along. He did come across as a nasty piece of work.

AMY holds SO much footage of her from an early age you find yourself growing with her. Her bouts of madness were just tangible... Maddening to see the glare of fame tear her apart. Paparazzi/media scum being an evil she could not tolerate. As Tony Bennett nails it - she was a natural, true Jazz singer.

Why would anyone want to become famous, to be in that limelight, being stalked by press and fans alike. madness!

Oh to sum up this is ESSENTIAL. Amy Winehouse fan or not her story WILL affect you. Personally I felt privileged to follow her life and immensely saddened to see such a talented soul leave us so young.

Greetings again from the darkness. Some may know Amy Winehouse as the Grammy award winning singer, while others may know of her as the drug-addled target of the paparazzi who died from alcohol poisoning 4 years ago. Still others may be asking "Amy who?" Director Asif Kapadia (Senna, 2010) delivers a film that doesn't shy away from the brutally tough "down" times, but also shines a light on the "up" times for this suburban Northern London Jewish kid who was simply unable to manage her rare musical talent, profound personal weaknesses, and the relentless media pressure.

Did you know Amy played guitar? Kapadia includes film of her crafting songs while strumming, and also early performance clips of her on stage with her Stratocaster. It's these rarely seen film clips … some home movies, some phone videos from fans, and some from other photographers … that provide the leave-no-doubt proof of Amy's musical genius – both as a vocal artist and a songwriter. Some of the clips provide a glimpse of her charm and sense of humor and desire for normalcy, while others show the bulimic, strung-out party girl mixed up with the wrong guy. We see her casually hanging out with her childhood friends, and later slurring words and staggering through the strobing flashbulbs. The contrast is heartbreaking.

While the typical documentary approach of "talking heads" is almost non-existent, we get plenty of insight from sources such as: her two closest friends, producer Mark Ronson, husband and enabler Blake Fielder-Civil, friend and first manager Nick Shymansky, music executive Lucian Grainge, and fellow artist Mos Def/Yasiin Bey. Amy's longtime keyboardist Sam Beste cuts right to the bone when he says she "needed music". That insight when combined with her childhood issues really bring into focus what allowed Amy to live, and then what snatched joy right away from her.

Even from a young age … we see her at 16 … Amy was an old soul, seemingly born into the wrong era. The music erupted from a place very few have. The number of performance clips are limited, but there is one when she is 20-21, and when she sings the word "emulate", it takes on meanings not yet defined by Webster's. Contrasting that with the legendary Tony Bennett coaxing her through a recording session is painful to watch, while simultaneously providing a front row seat to musical genius.

Director Kapadia shines a certain light on Amy's dad Mitch, her husband Blake, and others that were close to her. It's Sam Beste's frustration at failing on that first attempt at rehab that brings the biggest "what if?" Of course, that failure led to her biggest recording success with "Rehab" (no, no, no), but might it have also cost Amy her happiness and possibly even her life? The final Belgrade concert was one month prior to her joining the 27 Club, and perhaps it's just further proof that Amy simply "can't be that thing" that the fans and media tried to turn her into. Whether you are an Amy fan or not, this is a gut-wrenching look at how a talented artist struggled with life and fame … until the struggles won out.

As the public we only see the picture that is given us, but Asif Kapadia's new movie, Amy, shows us the behind-the-scenes of extremely talented star Amy Winehouse. We catch glimpses of young teen Amy, smiling to the camera. We watch Amy enjoy making her music. We replay her breakthrough. And we see the horrific reality of the consequences of her fame, and the influence of the press. This masterpiece is an eye-opener and shows the truth behind the glamour of the red carpet.

Even though most people know the story of Amy, it has never been retold in this setting. Archive footage which makes the movie real, raw and honest. Commentary of people who have participated in Amy's life, and they tell the story as how they knew her, and not how the press thought they knew her. We get to know the fragile girl who "just wanted to be loved" and see her path towards her inevitable end, with participation of her destructive relationships as her absent father, her bad-influence husband and her addiction.

While we see the changes in Amy we see the changes in her music. Her music started off as a product of her personality, her smoky jazz, "I only write a song if it really means something to me" - Amy. But in the end her level of personality in songs has sunken just as much as her participation in shows. She couldn't handle the load up of all her personal problems and became only a mere shadow of the emotionally powerful chanteuse she once was. Her journey is an emotional roller-coaster of the bright Amy as we see her in the beginning of the movie and the addicted woman who just couldn't let go of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol. They tried to make her go to rehab, but all she said was "No, no, no".

Although the emotional load up of this documentary is great, I do feel that it does show a selective side of the story. After I had seen the movie, I had the idea that everything that had come over Amy Winehouse was the result of her husband, parents, and the press. It is being presented as if Amy is a doomed angel because she is surrounded by the devil. This might be a peaceful thought for her close friends but I don't think it fully represents the truth.

But I am still amazed and overwhelmed by Amy's story and shocked how she went from the passionate and bright teenager she was, into a story about brilliance, depression, exploitation and addiction.

This movie is just as much as a worthy remembrance to Amy Winehouse as a representation of many celebrities who suffered from the pressure, the press and the fame-industry.

Mare P.

Amy Winehouse started as a jazz singer - her idols, we learn in this documentary Amy, were Sarah Vaughn and Tony Bennett - and actually looked down on a lot of pop music from her time period (she was born in 1983, so she would've been prime for 90's music, maybe the 80's carry-overs if she was staying current). She's even described by one or two of the people interviewed that she was deep down an old soul, or at least had the massive appreciation for where soul music and good R&B music came from. Indeed at one point one of her collaborators said she mused on making a "Jazz/Soul supergroup" that would've included a member of the Roots and Mos Def. It's sad so much of what she could've been didn't get realized and she died at 27, in large part due to media WAY-over scrutiny, and both too much and not enough attention from her family and friends.

By that one should say this, as her dad does (not that he's a figure to especially look up to from how we see him portrayed in the film visa-vi abandonment and pressing his own media into her private spaces in 2009), that she could've helped herself. But could she? Depression, anorexia, anxiety issues, bulemia, all of those issues that one may find as clichés with certain celebrities. What marks Winehouse as apart from that is she really didn't want to be a celebrity (and there is a difference from those that do and don't, see the Kardashians for more of that). If she just performed in small jazz clubs in front of 20 people she would've been fine; ironically, her song 'Rehab', about the conflict she had with her dad in an incident of going to Rehab, went to number one across the world, won her Grammys, and acted as something of an albatross around her neck.

The film Amy has so much in exploration of this person and the world that she was in, how the media affected her (in scathing, unfair attacks, not to mention the Mosquitoes of the Press world the Papparazzi, when she was at her most vulnerable, at least as we can see), and the ups and downs with her family and friends, who wanted the best for her by also couldn't take her drug and alcohol dependency. We see her in many moments and clips, some from press interviews, others her performances where, more often than not (until near the end, at least as the film shows) she killed it in a great way every time, and in her personal spaces.

If there is a flaw, and I don't think it's insignificant after thinking about it after I left the theater, it was the style of the clips. Some of this is just not good-quality footage; some of this can be excused away as that this is the best they could use, but other times it's not (a clip of Jay Leno looks like a 3rd-rate rip off of YouTube). The director made the decision to not do any of the 'talking-heads' style of interviews, just using audio - only some fly-over shots of London seem to have been specifically shot for the film for transitions - and that's fine too, except that in the second half I started to get tired of seeing how some of this footage was presented. Stylistically, it really resembles more of an online video than a theatrically-ready feature film.

I mention after I left the theater because this was something that only occasionally took me out of the film. The subject matter, the subject herself, is a compelling one enough to carry one through the murkier technical waters. If one already knows a lot about Winehouse it may not give you a whole lot of new news. But just as a story unto itself, given to the casual or not-known-at-all audiences to Winehouse's career highs and lows (the latter was me, I'd heard 'Rehab' vaguely) it's a searing portrait of what power and release can go into dealing with one's demons in the creative process, while the personal problems make thins just always so difficult.

Most of all difficult, indeed, is what to predict will happen to that person next; if one saw just the scene with her singing the duet with Tony Bennett near the end - an idol collaboration realized - one might see her talents and insecurities in one little bubble. She sings a take magnificently, but has to back off and go into her own head to go further, to be better.

For fans of Amy Winehouse, "Amy" is must-see. The story is already known, although the film provides many interesting details perhaps not widely seen in public media. To avoid spoilers, I will stick to vague strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths: > Good video and sound for the music parts - this is not somebody's iPhone video of a public performance > Chronology of story development - the film follows Amy's short life without jumping around in time > The obvious bias is that of a fan. Janis Joplin's biographers have not been nearly as kind. The performance sections in "Amy" are carefully chosen > No secret here: the pop music business and the pop media business have no humanity. They showed no mercy toward a fragile young woman who struck gold. This point was made clearly. The only improvement I can think of would be to get Keith Richards to comment on how the world loves to see its pop idols hounded - by police, by media, by fans, and by promoters

Weaknesses > Not enough music parts - the profound talent is displayed, but should have been put forth more often and for longer periods > The sensational drug and alcohol abuse drama overwhelms the film as it did the artist herself. That may have been the point, but if so, it was made heavy-handedly > Given the first two weaknesses, this film is just too long. I kept wishing they would get back to the concert and recording-session footage

The film is still a must-see for Amy Winehouse fans. Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Amy Winehouse's jazz record with Tony Bennett.

Asif Kapadia previously directed the excellent SENNA documentary about motor racing, so I was automatically looking forward to this follow up. The subject matter wasn't as interesting to me, but I trust Kapadia enough to deliver an engaging documentary nonetheless.

He doesn't disappoint. AMY is a carefully judged exploration of the life - and death - of modern-day jazz singer Amy Winehouse, whose whirlwind rise to fame was accompanied by drug and alcohol addiction, bulimia, and some decidedly dodgy supporting characters. This lengthy documentary is never boring for an instant and manages to straddle the line between being a celebration of Winehouse's achievements and a portrayal of the increasing tragedy that her life became.

There are high spots - the Grammys, the duet with Tony Bennett - and low spots (the paparazzi attacks, the increasingly obvious toll that drug dependence was taking on her body), along with some obvious villains (step forward, Mitch and Blake). Where AMY really shines though is in its refusal to go the lazy route by interspersing clips with talking head footage; nearly every second of the film features footage of Amy herself, making this feel like a truly dedicated and immersive viewing experience.

Not as much a review as an overarching question: doesn't this film seem to be an extension of the same sort of thing it criticizes? Amy is just as much a spectacle here as at any other point in her fame, which the documentary indicates was the major factor in her addiction and death. Sure, we feel like we know her after watching, but that's just the thing - we still don't and never will. The poor girl should've been left the heck alone and taken care of by the people who actually knew and loved here. And here we are continuing to try to access and ingest her celebrity even after she's been destroyed by it. I felt dirty after watching it, like part of a paparazzi mob or a skeezy, maladjusted public who viciously chews up and spits out the celebrities it bizarrely worships. Yes, the documentary itself was reasonably well done - I liked the use of her own lyrics to sort of narrate the film, that was clever - but in truth it was too long and often unnecessarily boring. Staring at her for long periods of time may incite some attachment that wasn't there before, but again, what are you really utilizing here (our desire to get close to celebrity) that isn't also something you're pretty openly denouncing at the same time? Let's be real, you made a film that's grossed many millions by using her tragic story in much the same way everyone else you're criticizing used her in life.