Review of Céline

Céline (2008 TV Movie)
8/10
This movie is not hand-tailored for the typical Céline Dion fan
15 November 2021
I strongly appreciated this biopic about Céline Dion the singer. Maybe it's because I don't like her music or her personality, so that I wasn't expecting much from this movie when I started to view it.

The fact that the actors do not look like the real persons is a very good point: whenever a film tries to mimic known figures, the viewer is distracted by any little detail that doesn't match. Here, we don't have to track these unimportant visual details, so we're much involved in the story itself and the psychology of the characters. Also, the songs are not the original versions from Céline Dion, everything has been redone with talent, it's brilliant.

There's a chance a part of the story was romanticised and some mistakes and omissions were done, but I don't care about that. A biopic is not supposed to tell every aspect of every moment in the life of an historical figure. At the end of the movie there is a text that boldly explains that this story is about Céline Dion and that she didn't participate in any way in its production. I find this to be a courageous attitude from the producers, given the number of movies about real people who try to disguise it with the usual warning "any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental" because they just don't want to be sued for public defamation (The Social Network is a famous example).

(Please note that I watched a version dubbed in French for the French public, so that any consideration about erroneous accent was hidden in the version I watched. Also I don't care that the international part of her career was almost eluded, I don't consider Céline Dion to be representative of French culture)

TL;DR This movie is not hand-tailored for the typical Céline Dion fan (and I like that).
3 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed