Amy Winehouse may have considered herself less of a star and more of a smoldering candle, casting a dim glow over the booze-soaked patrons in a smoky basement club, adding to the romantic danger of it all. But not many flames burned as brightly as hers before the troubles she commemorated in song extinguished her light on July 23, 2011, when she was only 27 years old . Amy sounded born to belt torch songs, her lived-in voice dripping with experience that belied her youth, musicality from another era and a seemingly bottomless well of despair.

Hence, her story has been told time and again, including in the Oscar-winning 2015 documentary Amy , both a celebration of her talent and a heartbreaking account of her downfall that was witnessed by so many—up close and from afar, through the enthusiastic media coverage of her self-destruction. (Winehouse's family participated but then distanced themselves from the film, calling it "misleading.") More recently, Back to Black , the Sam Taylor-Johnson -directed biopic starring Marisa Abela , was—despite topping the British box office for two straight weeks—ridiculed upon arrival by U.

K. critics for sanding off some of the harsher edges of the singer's story and cutting certain people in her life a little too much slack. Regarding criticism that the film leaves out pivotal low moments (such as Amy getting booed in Belgrade during what turned out to be her final concert) and that her dad Mitch Winehouse and ex-husband Blake Fielder-Ci.