Scoop review: Well performed but ultimately surface level<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\nIt\u2019s the first of many a rendezvous as the Winehouse star ascends, each awash with drink or drugs (and often punctuated by visits to a tattoo parlour, clich\u00e9d shorthand to rival the use of the Shangri-Las song).<\/p>\n
However, the flashpoints that continually tear the love birds apart take up relatively minimal screen time, and with little or no dissection; an oversight, considering they spawned the bulk of Back to Black, the album.<\/p>\n
The actual making of the record is given short shrift, too (influential producer Mark Ronson is nowhere to be seen), although the music itself provides pleasing crescendos, not least when we first hear the opening piano chords to the album\u2019s title track after one particularly heart-wrenching break-up.<\/p>\n
Arbela delivers impressive approximations of Winehouse\u2019s singing voice in a series of well-staged sequences, be it early gigs in front of friends in North London pubs, commanding the pyramid stage at Glastonbury, or a heartbreaking rendition of Love Is a Losing Game during a chance meeting with musicians at Soho\u2019s famed Ronnie Scott\u2019s jazz club.<\/p>\n
Taylor-Johnson\u2019s presentations of the songs are rich in detail and gorgeously atmospheric, but away from the microphone Winehouse remains an enigma, a torch singer upon whom neither director nor writer shine any substantial additional light.<\/p>\n