People have been criticising the singing of lead actress Marisa Abela.
The first official trailer for the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic is getting slated online by fans, with one stating that ‘criminal charges should be brought against the film’s makers.’
Back To Black stars Marisa Abela as the late singer, and Jack O’Connell as Winehouse’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil.
There’s a particular scene in the trailer that has got a lot of fans talking.
It involves 27-year-old Abela performing as Winehouse onstage at the iconic Ronnie Scotts Jazz Bar in London.
In the comments section underneath the trailer, one fan wrote: “Amy Winehouse you deserved better.”
While another commented: “Just saw a clip from the Amy Winehouse biopic and it’s worse than I imagined….it feels like a parody.”
While die-hard Winehouse fans were far from complementary about the young actor’s performance, others were more sympathetic towards the difficulties associated with playing such an iconic figure.
Some pointed out that any artist trying to replicate another, especially one with vocal talents as unique and generational as Winehouse’s, will never be completely accurate.
Speaking in a promotional clip for The Jonathan Ross Show which airs tonight on ITV1, Abela revealed that she didn’t sing in her audition, and that nobody from the production team heard her voice until she had already got the part.
She also admitted that she had to take hours of singing lessons to get the part perfect before she transformed into the late singer.
Speaking alongside the director of the biopic Sam Taylor-Johnson, she said: “I don’t think anyone even asked me in the audition process if I could sing!
“I knew Sam and I felt the same way that whoever was going to play this part needed to be Amy from the inside out.
“For me when I got the job I wanted to learn to sing as much as I could because this was her chosen medium – this is her artform, this is how she expressed herself,” she added.
“It felt so odd to do all of this work and then come to open my mouth to sing and cut to a studio recording. I trained really hard, I trained for two hours a day for four months.”
Others are keen to watch Skins and Unbroken star Jack O’Connell take on the villainous figure of Amy’s ex-husband, Fielder Civil.
The couple were constantly surrounded by a media and paparazzi circus during their tumultuous six-year relationship. This will be the first time their whirlwind romance will play out on the big screen, outside of the 2015 documentary Amy.
The recovering drug-addict appeared on Good Morning Britain last year, where he opened up about his relationship with the much-loved performer.
Fielder-Civil previously admitted introducing Amy to heroin, and is seen by many of her fans as partly responsible for her death from alcohol poisoning aged just 27 in 2011.
The film also stars Eddie Marsan as Amy’s father Mitch Winehouse, another figure in Amy’s life who fans believe had a toxic relationship with the star.
Back to Black will hit UK cinema’s on the 12th April.
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