Amy Winehouse, as seen in Amy (Cannes Film Festival)

Among the nearly three dozen films I saw at Cannes, the one that had the strongest emotional hook was, without question, Asif Kapadia’s in-depth biodoc of the late singer Amy Winehouse. Granted, the tender and trenchant Amy has an added resonance for fans and also for the melancholic question (one of many) that lingers afterward: What would the British jazz/blues/pop-accented contralto have produced had she not died in 2001 at age 27 of alcohol poison?

At 128 minutes, Kapadia’s thorough timeline may feel exhausting, but the film’s outline and length is purposeful; the number of times when Winehouse could possibly have been treated for her addictions/health issues becomes almost too many to count. Even if you’re familiar with her public unraveling, it’s nevertheless alarming how precipitously she fell off the deep end shortly after she made it big in America. The recounting of her drug-related incidents during the summer of 2007, played out in front of the voracious British press, is jaw dropping.

The film follows a standard Behind the Music downward trajectory, though Kapadia eschews the talking-head format, relying instead on audio from an array of interviews. Visually, Winehouse hardly ever leaves the screen: the film is a barrage of images culled from her private and public life, which, coupled with the wall-to-wall soundtrack of her music, makes this documentary more a tribute and less an exposé—although it is that, too. It goes without saying that Amy has a killer soundtrack, with many of the singer’s hit songs played almost in their entirety—the director knows the subject matter’s strengths.

Perhaps the most revelatory footage is a home video birthday celebration from 1998, with Winehouse, at 14, playing to the camera, along with her teenage mates. Already she had attitude, swagger, and voice of someone decades older. Another find: her recording of “Moon River” with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. (Overall, the film jumps over her musical education.) The amount of new material leaves viewers hoping that there’s more music or images somewhere to discover. For pre-stardom Winehouse, there’s always the documentary of her intimate 2006 concert in Ireland, Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (2011).

One highlight is the unedited feed from CBS’s telecast of the 2008 Grammy Awards, as Winehouse waits in the early hours, London time, for the announcement of the record of the year winner. The film doesn’t mention why she wasn’t at the Los Angeles ceremony: her request for a visa was denied by the U.S. embassy, possibly for an arrest for marijuana possession. She won five awards that night, a career milestone, and she seems genuinely surprised and overwhelmed by the recognition. But by this point, she finds even the post-show celebration “boring without drugs,” according to friend Juliette Ashby.

However, what may strike some as a sour note, or at least unnecessary, is the occasional inclusion of some TMZ-type footage shot by the paparazzi or a looky-loo, such as from a camera outside a restaurant where the singer and her bodyguard are eating dinner near the front window.

Additionally, the often pungent snippets from various interviews make the viewer highly aware of the selective editing process, perhaps more so than usual, considering the underlying question the film raises: Who failed Amy? Even before the film premiered, her father, Mitch Winehouse, condemned the film. It’s easy to see why. By her own admission, Amy’s mother did not know how to deal with her daughter, allowing her to move out at 16 because of what one friend referred to as “family issues.” And regarding her daughter’s eating disorder, she’s heard saying, “I didn’t think deeply about it. I didn’t think much about it.”

Mitch, on the other hand, comes across as opportunistic. Yet there’s the nagging feeling that the father/daughter relationship was more symbiotic and knotty than can be conveyed in an overview. Further, the documentary’s sources aren’t at all clear; it needs the filmic equivalent of a bibliography to help back up its interpretation.

Nevertheless, Winehouse’s father takes the most pragmatic approach toward his daughter’s addictions, though he comes across as slightly glib taken out of context: “You can’t force treatment. It’s Amy’s responsibility.” (He has blamed her ex-husband, Blake Fielder, for introducing her to crack cocaine, which is confirmed here by Fielder himself.)  Conspicuously absent is Amy’s boyfriend at the time of her death, Reg Traviss.

One of the few who comes off well here is Tony Bennett, ever a gentleman who acted as a peer and a mentor during the recording session of his duet with Winehouse of “Body and Soul.” She’s nervous, self-conscious, and a bit of a drama queen; unhappy with her singing, she threatens to leave the recording studio, claiming it would be a waste of his time. Bennett has probably seen this scenario play out before countless times, and he tells her that it will get better. Fittingly, he has the last word, praising Winehouse as one of the “truest jazz singers I have ever heard.”

Just four years after Winehouse’s death, Kapadia makes a strong and early attempt to place the singer’s career in a larger context. He offers an imperfect but creditable and melancholic biography and the template for the inevitable reevaluations to follow.