Amy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Amy Blu-ray Movie Review

She obviously should have said "yes, yes, yes."

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 2, 2015

When an artist bursts upon the scene as vigorously as Amy Winehouse did back circa 2003 when her debut album Frank appeared to rapturous reviews and brisk sales, and who then goes on to a brief but tumultuous career that ends in an untimely death brought on at least in part by bad decisions made by that very artist, there are going to be armchair psychologists by the boatload attempting to divine what went “wrong” along the way. There’s certainly evidence in abundance scattered throughout Amy, though director Asif Kapadia is perhaps reluctant to overtly indict various characters who most likely contributed to Amy’s ultimate sad downfall, instead leaving conclusions up to each individual viewer. Amy benefits from the fact that so much of Winehouse’s brief career was documented via video, giving the director a glut of source material with which to build his narrative in an often first person sense, with Amy herself either talking about her life or mugging for the camera in less guarded moments. In a gambit that’s somewhat similar to the one found in another recently released documentary about a music icon, Sinatra: All or Nothing at All , the documentary doesn’t employ traditional “talking heads” segments and instead lets archival footage and voiceover assemble the increasingly fraught picture of an obviously troubled star. The film is commendably intimate, even if it ultimately fails to answer some salient questions about Amy’s psychological makeup which obviously led to substance abuse and, finally, her death at the age of 27 from alcohol poisoning.

An array of rare archival footage was unearthed for Amy, and the film starts with a sweet moment from the future star’s teen years, as she helps a friend celebrate the friend’s birthday by singing that iconic anniversary anthem that only recently was deemed public domain material. Here in an unrehearsed, candid moment in her youth, Amy actually seems to be channeling someone more like Macy Gray or even Billie Holiday more than her self announced idols like Dinah Washington or Sarah Vaughan. One way or the other, her innate charisma and instantly identifiable sound are obvious.

Some of the early footage of Amy, whether in candid settings or in her first quasi-professional gigs as a fledgling jazz vocalist with an ensemble, finds the chanteuse blithely unconcerned about much other than the music. One of the interesting transformations that informs the documentary, and perhaps will provide fodder for armchair analysts given to trying to peer into someone’s psyche, is how Amy begins playing with her image as she becomes more and more successful, as if she’s responding to some inner directive to either change herself or perhaps mask some undiagnosed pain.

The fact that there obviously was pain is handled perhaps a bit too discursively for Amy’s own good, especially since some of the roiling family dysfunctions which informed the singer’s childhood are addressed tangentially and somewhat later in the proceedings than a purely chronological approach might have suggested. That in turn tends to remove some of the visceral annoyance some fans will tend to feel for Amy’s father Mitchell, since even by the time his mercenary instincts become clearer, there is no real context given for some of his other questionable decisions, including some missed opportunities to get Amy into rehab when it might have helped.

Things are probably emotionally clearer with regard to Blake Civil-Fielder, a male counterpart to what used to be called a “gold digger” when referring to an avaricious female, but one whose own history with substance abuse ends up playing tragically into Amy’s own story. While Amy obviously couldn’t choose her own parents, her relationship with Blake, which almost approaches Sid and Nancy territory at times, is presented as a fait accompli rather than something Amy wants to really explore from a psychological standpoint.

Despite these potential missteps, Amy follows an ineluctably tragic trajectory that sees Winehouse surrendering to whatever demons haunted her, declining precipitously over the course of a couple of years even as her career seemed to still be ascendant. The documentary really picks up significant impact in its closing half hour or so, coupled with some rather disturbing imagery (both stills and live footage) documenting Amy’s devolution into alcohol and drug addled incoherence.

Amy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Amy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Much as I mentioned in the Sinatra: All or Nothing at All Blu-ray review, Amy is stitched together from a lot of different source elements, all with widely disparate levels of quality. Many of the archival sequences suffer from limitations of smaller format or lo-fi capture capabilities, and a lot of the imagery is extremely fuzzy looking, and quite frequently littered with noise. More professional archival footage, as in some of Winehouse's broadcast television performances, look sharp and well defined in general, though even some of these better looking moments can suffer from video anomalies like ghosting. The best looking moments (and they are mere moments) from a contemporary sharpness and clarity standpoint are brief establishing shots, frequently aerials, that document various neighborhoods or regions that played important roles in Winehouse's life.

Amy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Amy features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which springs to forceful life when the various musical sequences unfold, which unfortunately tend to be interstitially and in condensed form. Otherwise, the surround track provides little immersion, due largely to the fact that the soundtrack is comprised mostly of people talking. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to address in this review.

Amy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Asif Kapadia, Editor Chris King and Producer James Gay-Rees. This is a rather interesting commentary from a number of different perspectives. The three discuss the provenance of many of the clips and how traumatizing it was for various family members to deal with providing them. There's also some interesting structural analysis given as the film flits by and King and Kapadia especially discuss how shuffling various elements helped give the documentary its current shape.


• Interviews with yasiin bey, Mark Ronson, Salaam Remi and Jools Holland (1080p; 53:52) offers some interesting talking head interviews which are otherwise missing in the actual documentary.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 33:25) features quite a bit more archival footage which should delight Amy's fans.


• Unseen Performances stem from acoustic sessions in 2006 and include:

  Rehab (1080p; 4:50)

  Love is a Losing Game (1080p; 3:50)

  You Know I'm No Good (1080p; 5:45)

• The Making of Amy (1080p; 1:55) actually plays more like a standard trailer.


• Amy Teaser Trailer (1080p; 1:30)


• Amy Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:17)

Amy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a certain unavoidable exploitative quality to watching a talented young star destroy herself due to substance abuse, and in that regard Amy may feel a bit too sanguine as it documents Amy's precipitous decline. What saves the documentary from feeling too smarmy is Amy's own spunk and kind of blue collar truth telling. It becomes obvious that whatever her personal issues, Winehouse was someone who may not have suffered high falutin' fools easily, but who simultaneously suffered herself from an inability to discern when those around her were not always acting in her best interests. This is a sad but compelling piece that will be a bittersweet experience for Winehouse's enduring fan base. Highly recommended.