Back in 2004 or 2005 I heard NPR reviewing a new album, “Frank”, and after hearing samples from it I immediately became a fan of its creator, Amy Winehouse. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t resonate with any of the themes in her music — I’d never fallen in love at that point, never yet had my heart broken, never been used, etc. But I was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the music, and I’ve listened to her avidly since. Tonight I watched the biopic of her life, framed by the relationship that drove her toward self-destruction (literally: she died at age 27 in 2011), and was thoroughly impressed. Marisa Abela nails her accent, costumes, and mannerisms on stage, and I say this as someone who has probably spent more hours watching her video performances than is healthy. (When it comes to certain artists, like Amy, Rachael Price, and Morgan Wade, it’s not enough to listen to them sing: I want to see them sing, to see the emotions playing on their eyes and faces and body language.) In scenes that are more creative, Abela proves several times to be a powerful emotive actress, especially when singing about a lost love in the face of her husband declaring to her that they were codependent and he was moving on. There were some great shots, most notably the last one which I won’t mention because fans of Amy know perfectly well what happens when that beautiful songbird is ascending into golden light and she’s going upstairs, her broken for the last and fatal time. Anyway, if you like Amy or music at all, go give it some love. I was one of two people in the theater during my showing, and the other was there at my invitation. Anyway, here’s the real McCoy — the song whose sound made me immediately begin looking for more of her. Planning on reading Amy Winehouse in Her Own Words soon.

Oh, and here’s her last writer Mark Ronson doing kinda of a tribute to her: