Television review: Reclaiming Amy

In a new documentary marking the decade since her death, Amy Winehouse’s Jewishness is never specifically discussed, but it’s there. It’s in the Magen David marking her gravestone, it’s in the yarmulkes worn by the grieving congregants at her funeral, and less morbidly, it’s recognisable in the video footage of what could be any North London Jewish family; real, messy, not perfect, but full of love. What marks this family as different though, is that their precocious, strong-willed daughter just happened to grow up to be a superhuman.

Seeing photos of Amy in her school uniform, hearing her reciting the alphabet as a toddler, viewing her powers awaken at a school musical, it’s like observing a young Clark Kent. Before the costume of hair, tattoos, eye makeup, before the voice, before she seemingly belonged to all of us, Amy Winehouse was Amy the daughter, Amy the friend. And in Reclaiming Amy, her parents and loved ones stake their claim to getting her back.

They want her back from the paparazzi, they want her back from the toxic marriage, they want her back from the drugs. They want the narrative back of what went wrong and how it went wrong. Specifically the story laid out in the 2015 Oscar-winning documentary Amy, along with the idea that the groundwork for Amy’s death took root in a troubled childhood, and that the ultimate tragedy took place partly through the actions and in-actions of her father Mitchell, and her management too. Regarding Amy’s childhood, this documentary is successful, with the later years, partially.