The film repeatedly shows swarms of aggressive paparazzi stalking the frail singer wherever she went, even as she attempted to enter rehab and fix up her life. “It’s quite visceral,” says Kapadia. “Through the tabloids, her life became a joke, and she was a sensitive soul. She wasn’t confident enough to deal with these issues.”
Amy’s father, Mitch Winehouse, a London cabdriver who began releasing his own music after her career took off, granted Kapadia extensive interviews, and is seen in much of the archival footage — at one point even showing up to visit his daughter on a Caribbean vacation, though she had no idea he’d arrive with a film crew in tow. The overall portrait is of a deeply devoted parent who was also very interested in maximizing his child’s earning potential, even as her health declined. Mitch was extremely upset with the final cut of the movie. “They are trying to portray me in the worst possible light,” he told The Guardian in May. (Mitch Winehouse declined to speak with Rolling Stone for this story.)
Winehouse’s father has objected to a scene that shows him suggesting his daughter did not need rehab; he said that he meant only that she didn’t need rehab in 2005, and that he later supported the idea as her condition worsened. Kapadia stands by his portrayal. “We’re telling the story in the present,” he says. “At that moment in time, that’s what happened.”
The final scenes, in which an ailing Winehouse is barely able to sing onstage, can be difficult to watch, as is the moment when authorities emerge from her London apartment with a body bag. “Part of the intention of the ending is to ask, ‘How did we let this happen?’ ” Kapadia says. “How did we let this thing go on, and nobody stepped in and stopped it?”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-amy-winehouse-we-never-knew-20150617#ixzz3dWFbZPQD