Celine Dion rose to stardom in the late-1980s, when she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988. By the time Y2K rolled around, she had the given the world songs like 'The Power of Love', 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now' and that ubiquitous anthem to undying love 'My Heart Will Go On' from the 1997 movie 'Titanic'. Dion remained active through the 2000s and 2010s, touring the world. In March 2020, her Courage tour had to be cut short because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Then, in 2021, Dion delayed the last phase of her 16-year Las Vegas residency. A year later, in December 2022, she told the world that she'd been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called stiff-person syndrome. The disease, she explained, was affecting her nerves and muscles, making it impossible for her to sing, among other things. Dion, who turned 56 in March, had not been away from singing, studio and stage for this long a stretch since her first performance aged 5 at a family wedding.
As such, Dion's performance at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 26 was her first in years - and it was the perfect afterword to Irene Taylor's documentary about the legendary singer and performer: 'I Am: Celine Dion', which dropped on Prime Video on June 17, 2024.
I Am: Celine Dion: The documentary review
Irene Taylor's film on Celine Dion is that rare documentary that lifts the veil and offers you a glimpse into the life of a megastar - hopes, struggles, spirit, et al.
The documentary begins with Dion pottering around her massive house, engaging with her three children, and showing the filmmakers - and through them, the viewers - her massive clothes and shoes collection (starting with a "very old Dior"). "I don't wear my shoes, my shoes wear me... I love them so much that I tell them (the store personnel) to give me any size between 6 and 10 and I'll make it work, because sometimes they don't have my size," Dion beams into the camera.
The documentary is cleverly set up to show us Dion in these highly energetic moments - the Dion we remember from stage shows - before showing us Dion struggling with her illness. "My lungs are fine, it's the muscles around them... they're so stiff," she says as she tries to sing one of her old songs and gives up mid-song.
The documentary is interspersed with clips of Dion's old concerts, recordings, performances. And because she became famous as a teenager, there are video clips of her at so many different ages and stages of life. We see her hair and makeup changing over the decades. We see her heavily pregnant with her first son, looking for flat (but not dowdy) shoes to wear to the hospital, we see her family around her newborn, her father playing the accordion to the baby. It's already a very interesting life, with a large family and larger fan base surrounding Dion.
Fans hold up a poster as they look forward to Celine Dion's performance at the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony. (Image via Instagram/Celine Dion)
Yet in its 103 minutes, the documentary shows us something we hadn't seen before, too. We see what stiff-person syndrome is doing to Dion, we see her getting her antibodies shots, we see Dion's indomitable spirit as she picks herself up each time she falls - from the disappointment of a poorer-than-she-wanted recording, and from physiotherapy sessions that are exhausting at best and excruciating at their worst.
Whether or not you are a Celion Dion fan, her struggle will be hard to watch for anyone who derives meaning from the work they do. It is heartbreaking to see someone who finds purpose in her job, struggle to do that same job after 30 years of performing at the highest level. It's hard to watch the older clips of how she used to be able to sing, and how keen she seems in the documentary to get back to that form.
The final scene of the documentary is particularly heartbreaking. In it, we see Dion go in for a physiotherapy session. As it is about to end, her toes curl up painfully. She's still on the physiotherapy table and she lays back down. Within seconds, she's seizing. Her body is frozen; pain written all over her face. Her therapists turn her body over and administer the medication. It takes over 15 minutes for Dion's muscles to relax and for her to be able to sit up. When she does, she immediately has questions around her recovery - how will she go back on stage if she can have a seizure at any time? Dion's therapist plays a song to remind her that this is part of the process, too. The song: Who Am I. Dion can't help but sing along. Watch it here:
It's rare to see icons struggle on TV / OTT. And to watch someone of Celine Dion's stature work so hard to recover what was once hers - so effortlessly - is at once heartbreaking and uplifting.
As seamless as Taylor's documentary is, though, it leaves one thing unanswered: whether and when Dion might recover enough to sing - leave alone perform live - again.
It's a question that Celine Dion herself was to answer at the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, with her rendition of Edith Piaf's Hymn to Love: 'L'Hymne à l'amour'.
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