By not lip-syncing Amy Winehouse’s songs, actress Marisa Abela confronts impossible expectations in ‘Back to Black’

Actress Marisa Abela and actor Eddie Marsan film a scene for the Amy Winehouse biopic ‘Back to Black’ in London. Neil Mockford/GC Images via Getty Images by Katherine Meizel, Bowling Green State University Like Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black,” the new biopic about the late British singer, has been no stranger to controversy. In the case of the film, opinion has been fiercely split about director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s decision to have actress Marisa Abela sing – instead of lip-sync to – Winehouse’s recordings. Some viewers have lauded Abela’s voice. Others lamented that she sounds “nothing like” Winehouse, or questioned why anyone would even try to imitate such a “unique” voice. As a music scholar who studies voice and identity, I see two elements stoking this dissonance. First, Winehouse’s distinctive sound came from her own imitative abilities: She borrowed from a long history of mainly Black women singers. Second, some viewers seem to want Abela’s voice to be a carbon copy of Winehouse’s. But as I’ve learned in my research, the art of vocal impersonation is less about perfect replication; rather, it’s most successful when performers mimic specific aspects of a singer’s sound that listeners can easily identify. Actress Marisa Abela...