17 replies to this topic

[scielle]

This is intended as a one-stop reference thread of links for published press/ critic reviews.
Most of these are already in the IACD Screenings Spoilers thread, and please keep commentary & discussion there or in the original IACD thread (IACD documentary or IACD Screenings Spoilers).
The aim here to is to have all the links in one place - please add any I may have missed (I haven't kept up with all the French ones, in particular).

Reviews

Montreal Gazette
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/review-i-am-celine-dion-premiere

Variety
https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/i-am-celine-dion-review-1236040777/

The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jun/20/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review

Globe and Mail
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/reviews/article-in-emotional-documentary-befitting-its-star-i-am-celine-dion-mourns/

Hollywood Reporter
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/i-am-celine-dion-review-amazon-1235924834/

Deadline
https://deadline.com/2024/06/i-am-celine-dion-review-raw-gut-wrenching-documentary-most-challenging-physical-trauma-1235980156/

The Daily Beast
https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review-a-harrowing-upsetting-watch

Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/c-line-dion-is-fighting-for-her-life-her-voice-her-sons-10-things-we/article_3c6e4970-2d82-11ef-a540-4f5d559d4bee.html

The Telegraph (UK)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/i-am-celine-dion-review-amazon-prime-video/
Test here

The Times (UK)
https://www.thetimes.com/culture/music/article/i-am-celine-dion-review-unflinching-portrait-of-singers-despair-and-heroism-rbjjdjmtf
Text here

Radio Times (UK)
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/i-am-celine-dion-prime-video-review/

London Evening Standard
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-stiff-person-syndrome-review-amazon-prime-b1165976.html

New York Post
https://nypost.com/2024/06/18/entertainment/i-am-celine-dion-doc-is-harrowing-humorous-and-hopeful-review/

Las Vegas Review Journal
https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/celine-dion-doc-jarring-inspirational-with-hints-of-vegas-return-3070771/

Exclaim Mag
https://exclaim.ca/film/article/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-film-review

POV Magazine
https://povmagazine.com/i-am-celine-dion-review-the-power-of-a-voice/

Hello Magazine
https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/694044/i-am-celine-dion-review-stiff-person-syndrome/

Next Magazine
https://nextmag.ca/review-i-am-celine-dion-as-overwrought-as-singers-shows/

News.com.au (Aus)
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/streaming/i-am-celine-dion-reveals-stars-lifethreatening-disorder-in-devastating-detail/news-story/4ae391142c7261ad3cd11e6c42e0bd9a

The Nightly (Aus)
https://thenightly.com.au/culture/film/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-reveals-brutalness-of-singers-health-battle-with-stiff-person-syndrome-c-15097200

Billboard Canada
https://ca.billboard.com/culture/tv-film/i-am-celine-dion

Evan Ross Katz (Substack)
https://evanrosskatz.substack.com/p/celine-dion-dr-amanda-piquet-sps-love-again
Text here

Breakfast TV
https://www.breakfasttelevision.ca/videos/celine-dions-new-heartbreaking-documentary-just-premiered-in-nyc/

Radio Canada
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2081499/celine-dion-documentaire-maladie-film-premiere-?

Le Devoir
https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/ecrans/815050/critique-i-am-celine-dion-prime-video

La Presse
https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/chroniques/2024-06-18/la-presse-a-new-york/si-seule-celine.php

BFMTV
https://www.bfmtv.com/people/musique/je-suis-celine-dion-on-a-vu-le-documentaire-de-la-chanteuse-emouvant-et-cru_AN-202406190438.html

Europe 1
https://www.europe1.fr/culture/je-suis-celine-dion-la-chanteuse-se-met-a-nu-dans-son-documentaire-sincere-et-bouleversant-4253693

20 Minutes
https://www.20minutes.fr/arts-stars/culture/musique/4096976-20240619-prime-video-documentaire-celine-dion-dechire-image-star-recomposer?


Other notable IACD-related articles

Globe & Mail: Five impactful moments in Celine Dion’s new documentary
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-five-impactful-moments-in-celine-dions-new-documentary/

Toronto Star: I watched Céline Dion stun in a rare public appearance at the emotional New York premiere of her new documentary
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/opinion/i-watched-c-line-dion-stun-in-a-rare-public-appearance-at-the-emotional-new/article_ae36c932-2f27-11ef-89bd-5b7d093978d1.amp.html

Vanity Fair: Celine Dion Gets Real About Life With Stiff-Person Syndrome: “I Have to Deal With This, and I Am”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/celine-dion-documentary-stiff-person-syndrome-premiere?

The Star: What’s the best Céline Dion song? We took on the impossible, totally uncontroversial task of ranking our pop queen’s greatest hits
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/what-s-the-best-c-line-dion-song-we-took-on-the-impossible-totally-uncontroversial/article_8888f546-2d80-11ef-832b-0f0dda37ad6a.html

CBC: Will we ever see Celine on the stage again?
https://www.cbc.ca/arts/commotion/will-we-ever-see-c%C3%A9line-dion-on-stage-again-1.7238135

Globe & Mail: Quebeckers are feeling Celine Dion’s pain, and rooting for her comeback
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-quebeckers-are-feeling-celine-dions-pain-and-rooting-for-her-comeback/

La Press: La sortie de crise de Céline Dion
https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/chroniques/2024-06-18/la-presse-a-new-york/la-sortie-de-crise-de-celine-dion.php

Le Devoir: Le retour inespéré de Celine Dion
https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/musique/815249/retour-inespere-celine-dion

[scielle]

Adding today's crop (so far)


Reviews

AV Club
https://www.avclub.com/i-am-celine-dion-review-this-intimate-bruising-doc-i-1851555394

IndieWire
https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review-1235019315/

The Wrap
https://www.thewrap.com/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review-prime-stiff-person/

Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2024/06/24/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review/
Text here

Sydney Morning Herald
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/celebrity/becoming-a-celine-dion-fan-had-nothing-to-do-with-her-songs-20240621-p5jnmo.html
Text here

City AM
https://jamesluxford.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/i-am-celine-dion.jpeg

29 Secrets
https://29secrets.com/pop-culture/celine-dion-documentary-a-vulnerable-and-moving-testament-to-resiliency/

Everything Zoomer
https://everythingzoomer.com/arts-entertainment/2024/06/24/in-i-am-celine-dion-the-legendary-singer-opens-up-about-her-health-and-journey-back-to-the-spotlight/

Times Now News
https://www.timesnownews.com/entertainment-news/web-series/i-am-celine-dion-review-singing-diva-inspiring-journey-of-illness-and-loving-her-fans-article-111233561

Liberation
https://www.liberation.fr/culture/musique/je-suis-celine-dion-le-calvaire-derriere-les-vivats-20240623_B7N7TYXO3FBN3I6OMRP3ADXUW4/?
Text here

Elle France
https://www.elle.fr/Loisirs/Cinema/News/Celine-Dion-pourquoi-faut-il-regarder-son-documentaire-sur-Prime-Video-4242594


Other notable articles

The Telegraph: I was one of many critics who looked down on Celine Dion – I was wrong
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/celine-dion-snooty-critics-wrong/
Text here

CBC: Celine Dion's 50 greatest songs, ranked
https://www.cbc.ca/music/celine-dion-50-greatest-songs-ranked-1.7238500

The Kit: Loving Céline Dion Is About More Than the Music. Here’s What She Means to Us
https://thekit.ca/culture/celine-dion-fans/

Edited by scielle, 24 June 2024 - 01:50 PM.

[Critiaslux]

Thank you Scielle!

[scielle]

Latest crop of reviews:

BBC Must Watch (~37min into the podcast)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j66pwn

Sydney Morning Herald
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/celine-dion-documentary-starts-slow-on-its-way-to-a-cruel-ending-20240625-p5joiv.html
Text below.

Spoiler

Celine Dion documentary starts slow, on its way to a cruel ending
I AM: CELINE DION ★★★
Who is Celine Dion without her voice? It’s a question the legendary Quebecois singer hopes we never need to answer, but a possibility that echoes throughout I Am: Celine Dion, the new documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Irene Taylor.
Taylor had been following Dion with her camera in the year before the singer was formally diagnosed with the rare neurological disease stiff person syndrome (SPS). The film attempts to invite us in to the reality of a life suddenly overwhelmed with medical intervention for a condition with no cure, and offer up comparisons with what that life was like before: one filled with performance and singing, instead of sedatives and immunotherapies.
In attempting to do the latter, the film’s structure is skittish and unwieldy. Archival concert footage from Dion’s 40-plus years on stage are presented as non sequiturs in between scenes of her twin teenage sons playing video games, and of her sending loving video messages to fans.
One early sequence takes us from an old concert, to news footage informing the world of her cancelled tour dates, to a charming trip to her hangar-sized warehouse filled with her collection of costumes and clothes, to an old clip of her scatting on stage with her band, to home-video footage of her pregnant with her first child in the early 2000s and pottering around at home, to a clip of her goofing around with Jimmy Fallon.
It might be too generous to justify these creative choices as a way to succinctly capture who Dion was – and is – outside of her reality living with a terrifying illness; there’s too little in the way of biographic or career detail to think these montages are filling in the blanks for viewers who’ve somehow avoided any awareness of Dion for decades. They felt distracting, but by the film’s end their purpose seemed more clear.
When focused solely on her present, the film soars. Dion is a captivating presence – as her status as a swan during late-2010s Euro fashion weeks can attest. (Not to mention her being the face of the “je telephone a la police” meme.) She’s funny and warm and earnest. She talks in silly, captivating spirals and always lands somewhere human and real, whether she’s discussing life in Canada with her 13 older siblings or her desire to be able to sing like John Farnham.
Yes, wildly, in this intimate, harrowing story of a pop diva’s career and illness, a surprising number of minutes is dedicated to her playing her managers a YouTube video of Our Johnny covering the Beatles’ Help and admiring the husky, hoarse quality of his voice. Her voice has always been such a finely tuned instrument, she explains, that she always felt jealous of the performers who could party and smoke after (or before) a concert. Singing fills Dion up and makes her feel alive. “Before I got really hit with SPS,” she says, “my voice was the conductor of my life. You lead the way, I’ll follow you.”
It’s especially cruel, having heard this, to witness, in the film’s final passage, what singing does to her now.
Over the course of filming, Dion only left her home three times. The final outing was to a studio, where she struggled to get a new song down on tape for the first time in three years. Eventually she does it. But the act stimulates her brain to such a grand degree it triggers a spasm.
Taylor’s cameras capture the process of her doctors laying her rigid body face-down, dosing out relaxants and warning that “going into a crisis” is possible. Her body won’t co-operate and her wide eyes are terrified. “If I can’t get stimulated by what I love …” an embarrassed Dion begins after the 40-minute episode is behind her. The end of the sentence hangs in the air.
The sequence of clips that plays next are short. They show a younger Dion not belting out an enormous chorus but simply walking on stage. The non-contextual editing choices come into relief: they weren’t showing us what she did in her career, they existed to show us how she could move in her body – and the power and confidence it gave her to have control over herself.

New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/movies/i-am-celine-dion-review.html
Text below.

Spoiler

‘I Am: Celine Dion’ Review: You Saw the Best in Me
Dion’s voice made her a star. A new documentary on Amazon Prime Video brings her back to Earth, showing her intimate struggles with stiff person syndrome.
By Chris Azzopardi
Illness shows no regard for even the most revered figures in pop music.
In “I Am: Celine Dion,” a documentary about the global songstress on Amazon Prime Video, it quickly becomes clear that Dion can’t even move her body, let alone deliver a soaring ballad with the full force that, from her teenage years on, roused millions. The film, by the director Irene Taylor, records the singer’s agonizing reality as she battles the rare neurological condition called stiff person syndrome.
In an Instagram post in December 2022, Dion tearfully revealed her diagnosis to her fans, but the documentary had already been in production by then. Taylor opens the film with relaxed scenes of Dion at her home in Las Vegas with her children and staff. Then the part that’s painful to watch: The singer is heard moaning as she has a seizure on the floor. Learning early on that she had always wanted to sing “all my life” intensifies the tragedy of watching Dion, now 56, struggle to continue to live that dream. Dion’s voice made her a star; this film is keen on making her a person.
But there is nothing subtle in Taylor’s montages, such as a high-energy past performance cut with the subdued domestic energy on display while Dion is vacuuming her couch. One shot pans to her eerily empty living room, a severe departure from playing packed stadiums. Even the score aches. All this palpable sadness is, perhaps, why Taylor interjects clips of Dion in better times.
I understand the inclination to not define Dion by her diagnosis. But Dion’s spontaneously expressive personality already shines through her pain in raw footage that feels more connected to her healing journey, like when her physical therapist nags her about a cream she hasn’t been applying to her feet. “Give me a break,” she says with playful exasperation.
She then sings “Gimme a Break,” the Kit Kat commercial jingle. While that welcome touch of humor pulls you into this intimately told story — what’s more Celine than an impromptu vocal? — inconsequential clips take you out of it: her impersonation of Sia on a late-night talk show; a part of her “Ashes” video that lets the Deadpool cameo go on for too long; her career-defining ballad “My Heart Will Go On” but, mystifyingly, the “Carpool Karaoke” version with James Corden.
of witnessing Dion transcend her circumstances. Especially when she lets the cameras stick around, showing some of the most grim health-related scenes I have ever seen of a superstar onscreen.
“I think I was very good,” Dion says about her career. After seeing a sequined costume of hers hung up at her home, the “was” is crushingly honest. But when she sings during a studio session, she still is very good. A final shot shows her as a starry-eyed teenager gazing up at the stage lights. It’s as if her younger self has something to say all these years later: That, if not now, it may all come back to her soon.

Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/i-am-celine-dion-review

Daily Mail
https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv/finder/documentary/361119/i-am-celine-dion
Behind a paywall and wasn’t able to get the text.

TV Tonight (Australia)
https://tvtonight.com.au/2024/06/i-am-celine-dion-2.html

India TV News
https://www.indiatvnews.com/entertainment/movie-review/i-am-celine-dion-review-raw-resilient-and-still-hitting-the-high-notes-892

BFMTV

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Edited by scielle, 25 June 2024 - 05:14 AM.

[scielle]

More Reviews:

Time Magazine
https://time.com/6990981/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review/

Collider
https://collider.com/i-am-celine-dion-review/

CBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDr__Xv5yw4


Jezebel
https://www.jezebel.com/i-am-celine-dion-offers-hope-but-doesnt-avoid-the-ugly-truth-of-stiff-person-syndrome

Decider
https://decider.com/2024/06/25/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-amazon-prime-video-review/

Xtra
https://xtramagazine.com/culture/i-am-celine-dion-review-266392

iNews
https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/i-am-celine-dion-brave-seizures-3124117

It’s a Stampede
https://itsastampede.com/2024/06/25/review-i-am-celine-dion-2024/

OTT Play
https://www.ottplay.com/review/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review-her-voice-will-not-go-on-and-on/f7a0494006893

Other notable articles:

CBC: Céline Dion and the songs that define her (and me)
https://www.cbc.ca/arts/celine-dion-songs-1.7245877

MSNBC: How Celine Dion conquered the critics to become queen of the world
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/celine-dion-stiff-person-syndrome-amazon-prime-doc-rcna158925

Edited by scielle, 25 June 2024 - 05:38 PM.

[scielle]

Reviews

The Morning Show (Australia)

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Sonia Benezra
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/le-15-18/segments/rattrapage/1791525/documentaire-je-suis-celine-dion-entrevue-avec-sonia-benezra

New York Magazine/ Vulture
https://www.vulture.com/article/celine-dion-movie-review.html

Screen Rant
https://screenrant.com/i-am-celine-dion-movie-review/

Cult Montreal
https://cultmtl.com/2024/06/unflinching-documentary-i-am-celine-dion-captures-what-we-love-about-quebecs-superstar/

Digital Journal
https://www.digitaljournal.com/entertainment/review-celine-dion-finds-her-voice-again-in-i-am-celine-dion-documentary/article

Flicks.au
https://www.flicks.com.au/features/new-doco-i-am-celine-dion-is-a-gut-punch-and-a-celebration/


Other notable articles

New York Times: Celine Dion Can Only Be Herself
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/arts/music/celine-dion-documentary.html
Text here

New York Magazine/ Vulture: Céline Dion Being Iconique: A Timeline
https://www.vulture.com/article/celine-dion-iconic-timeline.html
Text here

[scielle]

Lots of reviews/ discussion about the doc on Quebec radio, of course. These are from Radio Canada (the French CBC):

Penelope: https://ici.radio-ca...uis-celine-dion

Les matins d'ici: https://ici.radio-ca...uis-celine-dion

Edited by scielle, 26 June 2024 - 07:26 PM.

[scielle]

It's slowing down to a trickle. Gonna go through withdrawal now, after the past few days of a press deluge!

Review

CBC Commotion
Print: https://www.cbc.ca/a...story-1.7247694
Podcast (last 8 min): https://open.spotify...pToOavL7GdNRpzw
Video:


Other notable articles

Yahoo UK interview with Dr. Piquet
https://uk.news.yaho...-085848835.html

Edited by scielle, 27 June 2024 - 07:35 PM.

[québecflower]

https://www.lapresse...-sur-celine.php

in french but worth the read  .

[scielle]

The Arts Desk
https://www.theartsdesk.com/film-tv/i-am-celine-dion-prime-video-review-inside-superstar-singers-living-hell-0

The North West Star
https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/8675701/celine-dions-bravery-shines-in-new-documentary/

Rabe Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQwQDisKYYs

Edited by scielle, 30 June 2024 - 07:34 AM.

[scielle]

Radio / podcast reviews and discussions:

Taking it Personally (1.5hr discussion)
https://open.spotify...7Qo6HuWEsXyaX6w

Pop Culture Confidential (first 18min of podcast)
https://open.spotify...9CM0nFkpHJ3ZMMd

A échelle humaine (~30 min discussion)
https://ici.radio-ca...uis-celine-dion

iHeart Radio Elliot in the Morning (~20min discussion)
https://open.spotify...nhhWoBGg7KGz9Nb
(Warning, one of these dudes is really obnoxious)

TMZ Live (~10:30min in - 15:30)
https://open.spotify...JsvntlilqOAiCtG

Edited by scielle, 01 July 2024 - 07:18 PM.

[tshlw]

scielle, on 01 July 2024 - 07:18 PM, said:

Radio / podcast reviews and discussions:

Taking it Personally (1.5hr discussion)
https://open.spotify...7Qo6HuWEsXyaX6w

Pop Culture Confidential (first 18min of podcast)
https://open.spotify...9CM0nFkpHJ3ZMMd

A échelle humaine (~30 min discussion)
https://ici.radio-ca...uis-celine-dion

iHeart Radio Elliot in the Morning (~20min discussion)
https://open.spotify...nhhWoBGg7KGz9Nb
(Warning, one of these dudes is really obnoxious)

TMZ Live (~10:30min in - 15:30)
https://open.spotify...JsvntlilqOAiCtG

iHeart Radio Elliot in the Morning  - the obnoxious guy knows nothing saying he remembers when Celine packed on weight and was criticized for it and it was pre Rene. Like um no she has never packed on weight and there is no pre Rene in terms of her being in the public eye. I hate when people say things and are so wrong but now it is out there to all their listeners.

[scielle]

Slate review / discussion about the doc (first 20min of the podcast):
https://slate.com/po...s-heart-goes-on
https://open.spotify...NRpistTrbu-pnNQ

Edited by scielle, 03 July 2024 - 04:46 AM.

[scielle]

I Am: Celine Dion - RTÉ Arena on a portrait of a diva in crisis (15-minute convo): https://www.rte.ie/c...diva-in-crisis/

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Edited by scielle, 03 July 2024 - 05:10 AM.

[scielle]

More from Radio Canada (all French, these are basically different versions of a very similar conversation with the same journalist across different regional radio shows):

L’heure de pointe - Acadie: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/l-heure-de-pointe-acadie/segments/rattrapage/1796495/chronique-societe-documentaire-au-sujet-celine-dion
Pour faire un monde: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/pour-faire-un-monde/segments/rattrapage/1796545/syndrome-personne-raide-maladie-rare-celine-dion
Ca vaut le retour: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/ca-vaut-le-retour/segments/rattrapage/1796656/chronique-societe-analyse-je-suis-celine-dion
L’actuel: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/l-actuel/segments/rattrapage/1796709/nouveau-documentaire-celine-dion

Edited by scielle, 03 July 2024 - 06:34 AM.

[Jeanette]

Another fairly positive review, re-confirming how the ‘non’ Celine fans have been converted by the powerful nature of this documentary.

https://www.dailymai...y-close-up.html

[scielle]

In an ongoing effort to maintain this reference thread, adding the few recent ones -

Reviews

Carl Wilson
https://carlwilson.substack.com/p/on-that-celine-doc-and-other-viewing

Accessibility Media Inc - NOW with Dave Brown (~12min in)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7JTnP3DfRnFKmo7RjaSXh2?si=nl6SemkbSNqJgeuogmTglA&t=1340&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A1hdRHyjrPYpdpXzlzyUFpJ

KPCW (NPR Utah)
https://www.kpcw.org/arts-culture/2024-07-05/friday-film-review-i-am-celine-dion

Betches (~10 min in)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3uBtg6Lhee2OcRgymuUaLt?si=ttZeIhCAR3OwPAWN9aD5OA&t=1151&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A0GN9mMj7QQAYVsVaQKeaSV

Limelight Magazine
https://limelight-ar...n-irene-taylor/

CBC Radio: How is Celine Dion's documentary being received by the stiff person syndrome community here in Quebec?
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-383-lets-go/clip/16079691-how-celine-dions-documentary-received-stiff-person-syndrome


Other notable articles

Paris Match (with thanks to tshlw!)
English text here
French text here

Edited by scielle, 08 July 2024 - 12:15 PM.

[scielle]

A few more reviews:

Le monde
https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2024/07/09/je-suis-celine-dion-sur-prime-video-le-douloureux-chemin-de-croix-d-une-diva-sans-voix_6248077_3246.html

The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/i-am-celine-dion-documentary/679051/
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Spoiler

Celine Dion May Never Perform Again

In a new documentary, the singer talks about her autoimmune disease and her love for singing.

By Caitlin Dickerson

Early in the documentary I Am: Celine Dion, you see a cellphone video of Dion lying on her side on the floor of a hotel room, moaning softly. She seems to want to speak but can’t get out any words. Her body is stiff, her position unnatural. In the background, you can hear a man calling the concierge and asking for “the fire department, please, and a rescue unit.” Another man tells Dion to push into his hand if she’s in pain, but it’s unclear if she can hear him. The scene would be difficult to watch even if its subject weren’t one of the most famous musicians in the world.

Soon after, the film cuts to archival footage of Dion onstage in Las Vegas, in a bedazzled gold jacket, belting her first No. 1 hit in the United States, “The Power of Love.” She winks at the camera, rocks to the beat, and pumps her arms, looking completely in her element. Her love of performing seems innate—the same delight shines in her eyes in clips of her as a teenager, learning English and launching her career in Quebec, and in later decades, as her star rose. The Las Vegas scene reminds us not only how much we’re missing Dion during her hiatus from performing, but also how much she is missing us.

The documentary was filmed over several years as a team of caregivers have worked to address Dion’s rare illness: stiff-person syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects just one or two out of every 1 million people and is not well understood. Large parts of the body go rigid during spastic episodes. Many people with the condition develop anxiety and agoraphobia. Dion says that her lungs are fine, but everything outside them is rigid, which makes singing impossible. A few moments of creative editing are overly stylized, which is a shame because her condition needs no dramatization. It is degenerative and can be fatal.

She reveals in the film that she’s been ill for 17 years. She developed tricks to distract audiences when she felt her vocal cords spasm in the middle of a concert—pointing the microphone toward the crowd so they would sing for her, or tapping on it to make it seem like there was a problem with the audio system and not her voice. She canceled shows, feigning ear and sinus infections, and took valium daily. She pretended for as long as she could, which seems so exhausting that you have to wonder if it made her condition worse. She is 56 now. In the documentary, she doesn’t talk about wanting to be well; she talks about wanting to sing.

Dion shares nothing in common with young performers who lament how hard it is to be famous; she seems to live for her fans. They “give me lots of energy—lots and lots,” she says in an early interview in French. “Being onstage is the gift of show business.” She is the rare superstar who you feel somehow deserves her international fame and the wealth it has given her. Good for her, I thought as I watched her tour a warehouse full of designer gowns she has worn to major events, and walk through the Vegas compound where she lives, surrounded by enormous paintings, sculptures, Louis Vuitton trunks, and antique furniture that looks like it came from Versailles. Her twin tween sons are endearing too: One takes a break from playing in a decked-out video-game room to listen attentively when she comes in for a visit, proffering a degree of eye contact that I’ve never witnessed in a 13-year-old. Later, one of the twins jumps out of his seat to thank a butler who hands him a milkshake from a tray.

Okay, that last one was pushing it. But these are children whose father died when they were 5 and whose mother may well be dying now. And Dion was in no way destined for a life of abundance. She was the youngest of 14 children, all of whom, she says, smiled sweetly and pretended to like the carrot pie that their mother once made them for dinner because it was all they could afford.

From the first time she took the stage, as a 5-year-old performing at a family wedding, Dion was a star. She shot anxious looks at the guitarist behind her whenever he missed a note, because she—we are meant to understand—would never miss a note. That night, her mother gave her the advice that she would channel into her illness: If something goes wrong in a performance, pretend that everything is fine and keep going. At the age of 12, Dion was discovered by a manager, René Angélil, whom she later married. She began recording albums in English and French, eventually going multiplatinum in both. Most Americans knew her voice before her name because she sang the theme to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, released in 1991. But soon her name was everywhere.

To be clear, I’m nowhere near Dion’s biggest fan. I missed her first major album in the U.S., The Colour of My Love, on account of being 4 when it came out. But her next, Falling Into You, had me on my knees when I was 6, belting in my best friend’s bedroom about nights when the wind was so cold that my body froze in bed, and days when the sun was so cruel that all the tears turned to dust and I just knew my eyes were dryin’ up forever. We couldn’t wait for scenes like this to play out in our own lives, and though—it turns out—they weren’t terribly realistic, Dion’s heartful crooning about fairy-tale love connected with people of every age, perhaps especially those who were old enough to know better.

My real appreciation for Dion grew in 2018, when I saw her perform in Vegas. I had agreed to attend with some friends, expecting a silly night of singing along to her hits like I was a kid again. It was the best live performance I had ever seen. Her singing was stunning, of course. She ad-libbed frequently, taking pleasure in showing off her range, and her voice was warm and supple. But she was also funny. Very funny. She broke into stand-up between songs and showed no desire to be perceived as cool, hunching over to maximize the range of her hip thrusts while strumming an air guitar. She told stories that drew gasps, like that she’d originally refused to sing “My Heart Will Go On”—she didn’t feel like doing another movie theme song—until Angélil persuaded her to record a demo track so that he could sell it to another artist. The demo was so good that she never had to record it again, and he never had to shop it around to other artists; it’s the version we know.

That night, Dion didn’t even have to mention her late husband—or their love story, which still makes me, along with many of her fans, a bit uncomfortable because of how young she was when they met—for us to know when she was singing about him, maybe even to him. She cried, and so did we.

Since canceling a Vegas residency in 2021, Dion has mostly been isolated in her home, trying to get better. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she says in the documentary. The skin on her face now hangs forward and down, as if she’s exhausted by the power and duration of her own grief. Describing what this hiatus has been like, she performs her sadness almost too perfectly, because she’s Celine.

The documentary captures the first time in years that she had managed to record anything that even vaguely resembles her former self, the song “Love Again,” for a rom-com by the same name that came out in 2023. But her emotions trigger another spasm. Tightness in her big toe spreads to her ankle. Her therapist gets her to lie down, and soon her whole body is seizing. Her face darkens and contorts, and her upper lip twitches. The team treating her discusses when to call 911. But she comes to after being given valium and benzodiazepine, ashamed of having lost control. To cheer her up, her therapist plays one of her favorite songs—“Who I Am,” by Wyn Starks. She responds with the glee of a child who’s been handed a chocolate bar, mouthing the words and punching the air, pretending she’s onstage again.

The way the documentary was advertised suggested that it was going to be a more typical, will-she-or-won’t-she-make-it countdown to Dion’s big comeback, and I went in expecting it to end with the announcement of another residency or tour. But the film makes clear that she is nowhere near being able to hold a concert. She seems to nap for most of the day and says that just walking is painful. Her spasms are triggered by strong emotions, but they also happen at random. By the end, I didn’t care if Celine Dion would ever be able to perform again; I just hoped she would live. But I also understood that, for her, there is no difference.

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting

Edited by scielle, 18 July 2024 - 07:20 AM.