Back to Black film: Is Marisa Abela using Amy Winehouse's voice? (2024)

The Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black hit cinemas on Friday with Marisa Abela in the titular role and Sam Taylor-Johnson directing.

Amy died in 2011 at the age of 27 from alcohol poisoning. Her second and last album Back To Black was the best-selling UK album of the 21st century for years.

The star's biggest songs feature in the film as well as lesser-known tracks from her debut album Frank.

Amid the film's poor reviews, viewers have been taken aback by Marisa's eerily Amy-like vocals and questioned who was behind the soundtrack.

So is Marisa's voice the one cinemagoers will be hearing?

In short, the answer is... yes, with Marisa under pressure to take on Amy's unique style.

The film's soundtrack was composed and recorded by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

The soundtrack features three original recordings from Amy’s debut album, Frank, three songs from her masterpiece Back to Black and a new track, Song for Amy, sung by Cave.

Other songs from artists who were an inspiration to Amy – Billie Holiday, Minnie Riperton, Dinah Washington, etc – also feature.

In a recent interview with RadioTimes.com, Marisa spoke about how she managed to nail Amy's famously unique sound.

'I mean, it's an incredibly distinctive sound, so just nailing that sound was the difficult thing. Because I think that, you know, one of the incredible things about Amy was that she never performed the same song the same way twice.

'So in those moments that are, you know, specific interviews or specific performances, it kind of has to be right, because that's the only time it ever sounded like that. So that was important to me."

She finished: 'But again, it's just another challenge. It's just another, like, way to work.'

Director Sam, 57, revealed that she hadn't always planned to use the chosen actor's vocals instead of Amy's.

Speaking to Empire, she said: 'When we first talked about it, my first question to (Marisa) was, "Can you sing?" And she said: "I can't."

'I was thinking, maybe we’ll use Amy’s voice throughout, and we’ll do it that way. She then went off after that audition – irrespective of whether she knew she’d got the part – and started training her voice.

'Now she sings the entire movie, beginning to end. I mean, it's a huge feat.

Sam added that Amy's bass guitarist Dale Davis and backing singer Ade Omotayo got into the studio with Marisa and she and they agreed Marisa was incredible.

She shared that her performance was so emotional for them that they would just arrive on set when they weren't needed and soak up the atmosphere.

Also starring in the film is Jack O'Connell as Amy's ex-husbandBlake Fielder-Civil, often attributed for introducing Amy to drugs and alcohol.

Some diehard Amy Winehouse fans have been quick to criticise the vocal ability of Marisa Abela, who is portraying the singer in the film.

The film's music producer is Giles Martin: son of Beatles producer George Martin.

He weighed in on the criticism around choosing Abela’s voice over Amy’s in the final edit, telling virginradio.co.uk. 'The challenge was acceptance.

'I remember really early on, I think Marisa is fantastic. I'm really proud of the way we did it. I think people always go, 'It's not Amy Winehouse singing?' I go, 'Well, it isn't Amy Winehouse singing!'

'I think she gets the emotion across, and that's the challenge, in getting the emotion across, the frailty. I think it's a celebration of Amy, and I think Marisa's done a phenomenal job of that.'

Back To Back is available to watch in cinemas nationwide now