Director Anthoni A. Contreras brings us a hauntingly familiar story as we follow jazz singer Jade Winhouse in her final hours. Although the similarities between the protagonist in this film and the late Amy Winehouse are never addressed, the crossovers are undeniable. From the name Winhouse, which is so close it could be a spelling error, to the characters present in the story, Belgrado’s themes and narrative are rooted in the reality of Amy Winehouse.
Despite telling a somewhat familiar story, the film adopts an intriguing style – an almost pop art aesthetic with comic book style captions. Unfortunately, the English translations for these could be improved as they don’t read particularly well.
Showing all the hallmarks of an addict, Jane is fixated on her next high. We get a stereotypical drug scene, with distortion and delirium. Ivonne Carolina Glz as Jade stumbles around in a daze, interrupted only by phone calls from her boyfriend Blake and her father. Carolina Glz doesn’t get much chance to develop the character on screen, perhaps because of the choice to utilize captions over dialogue in the earlier section. It’s hard to get a feel for her character in the limited narrative space. The general drive and direction of the film could be improved too as the meandering style threatens to tip the scale into stagnancy.
The music is well fitting, moving from tense and driving to sultry jazz and the overall aesthetic is certainly interesting.
Watch the trailer below!