Amy Reflection

Amy

IMBd 7.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes 95%

74% Like

Madelon’s Rate: 9.2/10 (92%)

To me, Amy reigns queen…

Themes: Jazz, Music Icon, Rehab, Drugs, Unhappiness, Love, Heartbreak, Authenticity

“They try to make me go to rehab but I say No, No, No” …. These words became the anthem for many, the strength and rebellion ringing in all our voices as we sang Amy’s words. Words that to us were entertainment, beauty, and glamore, but to Amy Winehouse, these words were a reality lived. We seldom pause to consciously understand the emotions behind the songs we sing again and again. For Amy, daddy issues, drugs, and her ex-husband, Blake, cultivated a land mine of sadness, hurt, and addiction in Amy that was highly represented in her music, but too under-recognized in her own life, until it was too late. Many great artists reflect back on Amy’s life and knew she could have been a great legend in jazz, even more of a legend than she was at the time of her death. In Amy, archival footage is recovered to tell the story of the great late and great legend of jazz, Amy Winehouse.

The film traced Amy’s life, going in chronological order through her life. The beginning, the passion for jazz, the underground clubs and traveling, the come up, the ‘glow up’, finding love, falling to drugs, loosing love… Amy’s life was a rollercoaster just like many of ours, but adding mental illness and the access to drugs and the high profile celebrity status of Amy, led to Amy’s sad decent into the now late-Amy Winehouse we reminisce about. The authenticity of this film, and the build-up to the ultimate fate of Amy, left me passionate about discussing music, art, and mental illness with Emily as we left the screening. Again, another film we viewed that highlighted mental illness, this time through a non-fiction documentary representation (though not told or mediated by Amy herself), that I very much got emotionally invested in and enjoyed. I appreciate depictions and representation of mental illness on the screen, not because they are simplifications or generalization about mental illness, but because on-screen depictions get the message out there that mental illness is an issue that needs attention, focus, and discussion, and I believe film is one of the best mediums with which to represent and bring this issue to light.

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*We always mourn the losses of great artists who’s lives were cut too short