Valérie Lemercier directs and plays both old and young versions of the Canadian singer in a bizarre film that digitally superimposes her face on to the head of a young girl
Here is an utterly bizarre fictionalised biopic of Canadian singing star Céline Dion, whose opening scenes will have audiences screaming and running out of the cinemas the way they were mythically supposed to have done at the Lumière brothers’ first silent movie about the arriving train. Even now, I still can’t believe I have seen it.
Valérie Lemercier (from Claire Denis’s Vendredi Soir) directs and stars, playing Aline Dieu – a made-up version of Dion – the youngest of 14 children in Quebec, all the kids kept in line by their formidable working-class mum Sylvette (Danielle Fichaud). Young Aline shows precocious singing talent and her parents send a demo tape to ageing record producer Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel), a version of the real-life René Angélil, who is to become her manager, husband and soulmate as Aline begins her ascent to mega-selling glory, culminating in the Titanic theme My Heart Will Go On and legendary Vegas residencies.
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