Review of Amy (2015) by Drake H — 17 Jul 2015

Amy- Movie Review (A-).

I would say that we rarely notice what its unfolding in front of our eyes (as someone once said, you have to take the time to observe what you are looking at), it is not until we revisit some event with a particular knowledge, that we are able to (see) pick on the clear messages a person or a situation is sending in real time.

I recently went to see the new documentary on Amy Winehouse (Amy) and was surprised by the amount of information this girl was just sending out to the world and we interpreted at the time as very cool and heartfelt songs.

We all hear everywhere, pour your personality (heart) on what you do, and to some of us it would sound like a broken record for a good reason...because we are NOT listening to the message in real time, most of us are focused on trying to imitate what the successful person on a given field is doing and quickly trying to convert it into a magic formula that will get us on our way to be liked or appreciated.

Well guess what, that work you are trying to imitate, is made up of exactly an individual's influences and struggles that somehow gets poured on that piece of work that you like so much, you cannot replicate it, that specific piece it's not yours to create, you have to go find your own way and create your own version of it. But I Digressed.

The documentarians did an amazing job at telling a very personal tale of her meteoric artistic life with lots of footage from friends and family, I was actually surprised of how much was documented by the personal clips, it helped give the film a really personal touch, it felt almost as if they knew back then that it was going to be used as part of a movie, between the shaky/ grainy family videos and her song lyrics you could easily fill the gaps not covered by one or the other, yes those songs reflect exactly what she was going through at the time, with very personal and literal poems she manage to pour her heart out, no wonder most of us like her work so much.

I did struggle during the whole movie not to judge the facts being revisited, I would tell you in wasn't hard to pick a side, because at least on this version of the facts, you can clearly see what and who could have caused her to go into this downward spiral in such a short time, the documentary is well constructed and did a good job of filling the gaps on a story that I thought it was well covered by the media, but after seeing this piece I realized how little I knew about it.

Amy is a Great Documentary; go and support your local art house cinema if you are lucky to still have one, otherwise you will have to wait for the streaming version or DVD.

Amy is on Limited release (A-).

PS. If you are expecting this to be a musical tribute or a concert you will be disappointed, the music is used sparingly and mostly to fill in the blanks in the storyline.

Favorite Quote: (Paraphrasing) - if I had a chance to give her some advice, I would tell her to slow down, "Slow Down, life will show you how to deal with it, if you live long enough". -Tony Bennett.