Valérie Lemercier, a Céline Dion superfan, has made a touching biopic of the Quebec singer, in which she embodies the artist, flesh and blood; her rise from poverty to the glory of musical superstardom.
“Aline” looks like a joke on-paper, but Lemercier invests so much irresistible energy to her film, which she wrote, directed and starred in, that the love she infuses in every frame turns out to be damn-near infectious. It’s no wonder then that Dion herself gave Lemercier her blessing to use her songs, free of charge, in the film.
The youngest of a French-Canadian couple's 14 children, Dion, pseudonymed Aline here, was instantly propped up as the next big thing in her very early teens. The controversial relationship she’d end up embarking on with her much older manager, Guy-Claude (Alex Lutz), René Angélil in real-life, is gracefully handled. There was a 26 year age gap between the two, but their relationship turned out to be one of the more longer-lasting in the industry.
It’s not like Guy-Claude/Angélil had to hustle his way to turn Aline into a household name, her voice did the talking, and what a voice it was. The musical scenes in “Aline,” shot in rather middling fashion, might lack the fervour of live performance, but Lemercier is so into them that you just give in to the music. She manages to transcend the kitsch of the project with a skilful dosage of humor and elegant staging.
Spanning almost five decades, “Aline” is made with a lot of admiration, in both tone and form, Lemercier slips into the life and dresses of Dion to tell, with a few liberties but without ever making fun, the singer’s love story with the man who made her grow as a woman and as an artist.
Aline and Guy-Claude’s love song turns out to be the very core of the film. The stakes may be low, especially for a musical biopic, but the emotions that that it releases, and the benevolence by which it is told, while putting the finger on what could be pathetic, feels out of the ordinary, flamboyant and comical. [B/B-]
”Aline” will be in theatres this Friday.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.