Photo © Focus Features
Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black’
Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black’
Alam
(Film Movement DVD)
Tamer is a high school student who hangs with a low-performance crowd. They smoke pot, drink, talk about girls, key cars. He’s been suspended and faces expulsion after one more screw up. He’s also a Palestinian living inside Israel—an Israeli citizen with many reasons to feel like a second-class citizen. Much of the build-up in Palestinian director Firas Khoury’s Alam (2022) concerns Tamer’s gradual shift from apathy to activism, focused on the Israeli flag flying over his school. The shift is partly peer pressure as well as his infatuation with a beautiful new classmate, Maysaa, whose brother had been “martyred” for the cause. Tamer faces tension all around, including from his parents who warn him against getting involved. Alam is a quietly observant drama of everyday life. (David Luhrssen)
Back to Black
(In Theaters on May 17)
When an acclaimed artist dies young, our cultural memory struggles to reconcile the loss. Amy Winehouse, 27 at the time of her death from alcohol poisoning, had recorded just two albums. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson, working from a screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, recounts Amy’s all-too-brief career through the lens of her on-and-off-again romance with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell). Played by Marisa Abela (who reportedly does an excellent job of not only mimicking Winehouse’s mannerisms, but her singing voice as well), Winehouse was over-imbibing long before meeting Jack in a bar. He, unfortunately, used heavier drugs, and the pair fought with one another as frequently as not. Through it all, Winehouse obsessed with O’Connell as a moth to the flame. The film reveals she put her foot down when executives and producers claimed to understand Winehouse’s music better than she. Against all advice, she took time off between her debut and second (final) album in order to live a life she could write about. Her experiences became the album Back to Black. Despite recounting a few Winehouse family dynamics, the film shares surprisingly little of Winehouse’s internal life. It isn’t perfect, but probably hits enough right notes to reach Winehouse’s audience. (Lisa Miller)
I Saw the TV Glow
(In Theaters on May 17)
I Saw the TV Glow traces the pain and fear of seeking to be ourselves as teens and young adults. It also asks what price one pays should they fail to live authentically. Set in the 1990s, the tenuous, life-giving connection between teens, Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), centers around their mutual love of a fictional television show called the “The Pink Opaque.” A supernatural connection between the show’s heroines allows them to jointly fight evil forces. Part teen-drama (emphasis on queer and trans), and part horror, the film is hailed as unique. At least one of the protagonists, who, in the 1990s feels under-represented on television and in cinema, uses the fantasy aspects of the beloved show, as a means of coping while struggling with what being true to herself entails. Written and directed by nonbinary Jane Schoenbrun, the director emerges as a voice for such teens, and for all in search of acceptance. The film only half-heartedly considers under what conditions being authentic can do more harm than good. Yet, with an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film gets much right. (Lisa Miller)
