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Amy (2015), R, ★★★1/2

Amy Winehouse.
This is a short movie review.

Is it or is it not a cliche to document musicians as subjects for documentaries? Yes and no because we would want to get to know the musician(s) in their personal and professional lives in terms of working, loving the music industry, fame and struggle. However, when a musician remains on the terms of just being talented to write/create songs and perform them as artistically as he or she can, then you "gotta leave him/her alone to perform it". Even though Amy Winehouse is not an artist I listened to often, I now understand how life treated her unfairly and we lost a very talented musician that could've brought more sensational work.

We take on a journey in director Asif Kapadia's (director of Senna) documentary as we take a journey through the obstacles of fame and privacy above and under the tabloids as she tries to prepare and process in her mind how to perform on-stage and off-stage in her personal life. We see the documentary meshed with her brash humor mixed with the insecurity with herself and with other men. Therefore, during the brief success of her life, she went through a out-of-control addiction of drugs and alcohol that unfortunately took her life at the age of 27.

It is edited not as predictably as in other movies regarding artists in the music artistry. It is sort of a rise and fall tale of the talented musician but it is not played in that particular way. However, not focusing on the negative aspect of her life, we see the documentary interweaving Amy's life with footage of her home movies as we witness her peak of her short and sad life with her winning the Grammy for her, actually, very good song called "Rehab". It is very sad we cannot see what more work we could listen to but all in all, Amy Winehouse was a very respectable and talented musician.

***1/2

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