Amy Winehouse died in 2011, now the British actress Marisa Abela (27) is turning into the singer. The first trailer for the biopic “Back to Black” has now been released. Abela, known from the HBO series “Industry”, can also be seen in the clip in the celebrated singer’s iconic look with a lush updo and tattoos. Named after the album title “Back to Black”, the film is about the beginnings and successes of the Grammy winner and her eventful private life.
The Brit Jack O’Connell (33) plays her long-term partner Blake Fielder-Civil, to whom Winehouse was married from 2007 to 2009. Through him the singer also got drugs. She died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 at the age of 27 after years of struggling with drug and alcohol problems.
The film by director Sam Taylor-Johnson (“Fifty Shades of Grey”) is scheduled to hit theaters in April. The screenplay for “Back to Black” comes from Matt Greenhalgh, who previously wrote the script for Taylor-Johnson’s feature film debut “Nowhere Boy” (2009) about the young John Lennon.
On Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), the reactions of the Amy Winehouse fan community are divided. “I have mixed feelings,” writes one user on Instagram, for example. “I want to see the movie because I love Amy and I’m curious, but I also think Amy would have hated it so much.” Or: “Amy deserves more than this.” Others write that actress Abela “looks nothing like Amy.”
Particularly irritating for many fans: In the film, the singers’ original voices are not used in the music, which causes outraged reactions: “Her voice was her legacy and you simply took it away and used someone else’s?” writes one user Instagram. And further: “The actress has a beautiful voice, but you should know that Amy Winehouse fans can immediately recognize whether it is her voice or not.”
Fans responded on social media with mostly negative reactions, but many are still looking forward to the film: “Exciting,” “goosebumps,” or “It’s going to be emotional,” users wrote when the trailer was published on X.
In 2015, British director Asif Kapadia made an Oscar-winning documentary about the life of the soul star, “Amy.” This is now the first feature film to also secure the support of the Winehouse estate.
