Tyler James claims Back to Black sugar-coated, glossed over and missed out huge chunks of Amy Winehouse's life. Photo / Getty Images
Tyler James claims Back to Black sugar-coated, glossed over and missed out huge chunks of Amy Winehouse's life. Photo / Getty Images
Amy Winehouse’s best friend believes the late singer would be “fuming” over new biopic Back To Black.
Tyler James has hit out at director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “dreadful” new movie, insisting it resembled a “fantasy” and his friend “deserved a lot better” because the biopic didn’t show the Amyhe knew and loved.
He told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: “I wish Amy could have seen it. She’d be fuming. Amy deserved a lot better. She was a superstar.
”I was not expecting it to be realistic or completely accurate. But it was worse than I thought it would be. It was dreadful and does not do her justice.
”They sugar-coated, glossed over her amazing life and missed out huge chunks. It is not telling her story. So much more could have been told in this film that would have built up a better and fuller picture of who Amy was.
Tyler James met Amy Winehouse when they were just 12 years old and lived with her from age 18 until she died. Photo / Getty Images
”She was the most amazing, beautiful person that I have ever met in my life. She was hilariously funny, intelligent and smart. That didn’t come across.”
James - who met Winehouse when they were just 12 years old and lived with her from the age of 18 until she died in 2011 - cried when he saw the movie because it felt “surreal” but he insisted it wasn’t because it cut close to home.
He said: “I cried because there had been so much anticipation about what it would be like. It felt so surreal, so strange.
”But I wasn’t upset because I was watching her life story, because the film was so far removed from my life with Amy and the reality, there were so many odd inaccuracies.
”It showed her taking class-A drugs before she even met Blake, which is completely wrong. It is an absolute liberty to do that.
”In parts, it was as though Amy was the only addict, the only one with a problem. It shows them having coherent conversations and him being completely straight-talking...
”The movie is generalised, it is vague, it didn’t really have a point to it. The thing I didn’t like is they often got her character wrong. It showed her being over-the-top and confident on stage in the early days. That was not at all what Amy was like then. She wasn’t cocky.”
James praised Marisa Abela for her performance as the late singer.
However, he did praise Marisa Abela for her performance as the late Rehab singer, though he thinks Winehouse’s singing voice and not hers should have been used in the film.
He said: “They should have used Amy’s voice. I think the actors were great, I’m not knocking them.
”The actress who played Amy did brilliantly, and there were points when she spoke when it could really have been Amy speaking. But if you are going to tell Amy’s story, it should have been her, her voice singing.”
And James is pleased with how Winehouse’s love story with Blake Fielder-Civil, who is played by Jack O’Connell, was depicted.
He said: “She did love Blake, she really did. And he loved her. I liked Blake and I am pleased he wasn’t made out to be an absolute villain, because he wasn’t.
”Often there has been no sympathy for him, as though he was responsible for everything.”
