Céline

Jeff Woolnough

BY Robert BellPublished Jan 9, 2009

More an expositional series of poorly staged events than a film, per se, Céline glosses over the life of the famed singer safely and inoffensively with a cheap, amateurish, almost sketch comedy-like aesthetic. In fact, as the actress portraying Ms. Dion in the film looks much like Nicole Parker from Mad TV, it is difficult to jump out of comedy mode when the camera awkwardly pans up her body to reveal a goofy expression and a cheap wig. Exacerbating this issue are some seriously bizarre takes, such as Colantoni's heart attack and many scenes involving the young Céline, which leads one to wonder if the editor was consciously choosing the worst possible footage or if the entire cast and crew simply did not give a shit. The biopic follows Céline Dion from her youth (played by Jodelle Ferland) as an aspiring singer in Charlemagne, Quebec, through her minor successes as a teenager to her eventual worldwide success after emerging as a woman (Christine Ghawi) with an adult sound, according to the film. Much of the controversial statutory rape allegations with Céline's much older manager/husband Rene Angelil (Enrico Colantoni) are glossed over, implying that Angelil was a perfect gentleman only interested in Dion's music career, until she was 20. Minor rumblings of a resultantly disgruntled mother and childhood scarring due to the constant reminder that her conception was an accident exist within the film but again, subsist as incidental titbits rather than progression-based development points. All of these textual flaws, however, may be insignificant to the primary audience for a televised telling of Ms. Dion's life story, as the interest is likely in the many musical performances, which are present, as well as the manner in which she progressed to stardom, which is again, present, if simplified.
(Paradox)

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