Amy

PLOT SUMMARY

The documentary looks at the life of one of the best if not the best British soul singers to emerge in modern times. At the start of the film, we see a home movie made in 1998 where we see a 14-year-old Winehouse singing along with her long-time friend, Juliette Ashby, at the birthday party of their mutual friend, Lauren Gilbert, at a home in Southgate, London. From there on, Kapadia takes the narrative to the songwriter's life from her early childhood, to where her music career really began. We see her travelling with her manager to gigs all over England and then one day, she plays a song she wrote to a music label manager, after which she is offered a record deal. For a while, things go great for her until she meets and then marries Blake, who is a junkie. Winehouse was already a drinker who could, as one individual in the movie says, ‘drink any man under the table’ but adding hard drugs to it was a lethal combo. Nonetheless, she had major stardom and fame coming her way.

She attained commercial success through her debut album, Frank (2003), arguably the number one album of the 21st century, Back to Black (2006), to her troubled relationships, self-harm, and bulimia nervosa, the controversial media attention, and her downfall via drug and alcohol addiction, all until her untimely death in 2011. Winehouse is featured throughout the film talking about her early influences and how she felt about fame, love, and her music career. There are also interviews with everyone close to her from her friends and family to her work associates. In fact, so extensive is the source material that Kapadia is said to have conducted more than 100 interviews with individuals Winehouse's friends and family. The film shows extensive unseen footage and unheard tracks Winehouse had recorded in the years before she died. Unheard tracks featured in the film are either rare live sessions, covers, such as Moon River from when Winehouse attended the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in 2000 or never-before heard songs that the star wrote, such as We're Still Friends.

There is some footage in the film of Winehouse, such as an interview with Jonathon Ross & about singer Dido in 2004, when she promoted her debut album, when she's giving her friend Lauren Gilbert a tour of her holiday flat in Spain in August 2005, when she's filmed recording and at the Grammy Awards in 2008. The documentary movie ends with the singer’s death. Amy Winehouse, who was found dead on 23 July 2011 from alcohol poisoning, at the age of 27 at her home in Camden, North London.