I thought that I knew and loved art. Turns out, I didn’t know it too well. Amy was an amazing piece of art, from the artist whose life we viewed through a secret lens, to the actual production of an untold story.

So often the media does, unfortunately, an excellent job at portraying celebrities to be villains, drug users, and anything else that separates them from seeming human. This highlights the importance of celebrities’ voices being heard, and their abilities to tell their own stories, with their mistakes, rationale, and moments of growth.

In this film, James Gay-Rees (Producer), Asif Kapadia (Director), and their entire team, did a phenomenal job telling Amy Winehouse’s story – it was almost as if she had put it together herself. Her story was told through many paradoxes – art, love, abuse (in its many forms). Nonetheless, you felt her. It felt like a conversation was had between an individual audience member and Amy, as so much of the footage was home videos and interviews.

What I love most about art is that no one piece, only tells one story. Every piece is layered with stories, and so was Amy. The film told the story of the star, her mother, her father, her close friends, her boyfriend, her bodyguard, her managers, and so much more. Even though the film didn’t tell their life stories as it did for Amy Winehouse, it gave perspective into their stories, and their relations to Amy.

With art that you’ve really engaged with, you cannot walk away the same. You have some new thought, new feeling, or something else. When I walked away from this masterpiece of art, I walked away knowing Amy Winehouse, knowing what specific pains could lead to, and thinking about society’s role in the destruction of good people.