Review: In emotional documentary befitting its star, I Am: Celine Dion mourns for singer’s once-mighty voice

• I Am: Celine Dion
• Directed by Irene Taylor
• Starring Celine Dion, Bear (her dog)
• Classification PG; 102 minutes
• Opens in TIFF Lightbox June 18; premieres on Amazon Prime Video, June 25

For the Toronto premiere of the new Celine Dion documentary on Monday, tissue boxes promoting the film were placed in the TIFF Lightbox washrooms. The Kleenex would come in handy.

I Am: Celine Dion, which launches on Prime Video on June 25 after a short theatrical run in select venues, is an affecting pageant of intense emotional moments chronicling the Quebec singer’s struggle with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle spasms and, in Dion’s case, significantly impairs her singing.

We learn that Dion had suffered from undiagnosed symptoms for a long time, treating them with high doses of Valium. Though her condition is not fatal, the inability to perform at a high level – her last concert was nearly five years ago – is killing her.

“I need my instrument,” she says.

Directed by Irene Taylor (most known for 2016′s harrowing HBO doc Beware the Slenderman), the film is billed as a “love letter” to Dion’s fans. The superstar expresses profound regret for cancelling concerts and tearfully says she misses her fans and pledges to come back.

“If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. And I won’t stop – I won’t stop.”

Please stop the melodrama, Celine. The My Heart Will Go On energy is too much at times. At its worst, the film is an homage to Dion’s presented indomitability. At its best, it serves as a compelling portrait of a powerhouse performer’s lifeblood love of stage and audience.

There is no attempt at bio doc. Dion’s late husband and manager, René Angélil, for example, is not a major part of the story. Dion’s sleepy, well-fed dog, Bear, on the other hand, is immediately a front runner for a Best Pooch in a Supporting Role award.

Anyone expecting a concert film will be disappointed. There are archival clips aplenty, but never full songs. Instead, the music snippets are often used as segues. We see Dion singing the Ike and Tina Turner hit River Deep – Mountain High: “When I was a little girl …” It leads to a vintage interview of Dion the ingenue.

“My dream is to be an international star,” the teenaged phenom says, “and to be able to sing all my life.” Many of Dion’s dreams came true, but not that one. Now 56 years old, she may never regain the ability to belt as piercingly and theatrically as she once did.

Unquestionably, this is a sad film, with or without the footage of Dion on a stretcher, her body locked rigid in muscle spasm.

Still, there’s a funny bit from the video for Ashes, a passionate song from the 2018 superhero comedy Deadpool 2. Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds tells Dion to bring her energy level down from an 11 to a five: “Just phone it in.” Of course Dion can no more phone it in than Reynolds can talk without smirking.

“Listen,” she tells him, pointing to her throat, “this thing only goes to 11.”

The chanteuse is the film’s lone voice, 11 or otherwise – no one else is interviewed, not even a doctor to explain the syndrome that caused the suspension of her career. If I were to suggest that an often emotional Dion was performing for the camera, it wouldn’t necessarily be a criticism of her or the film. She is a creature of the power ballad; there is no five on her dial.

We get a peek behind the curtains (and behind the gates of Dion’s Las Vegas mansion). Everything she has, she has more than most, including more shoes than an Imelda Marcos yard sale.

There is an attempt to present Dion as the people’s superstar by showing her feeding the dog and vacuuming the sofa. (Vacuuming the sofa?) And even though we see what looks to be a butler serving one of her sons a milkshake on a waiter’s tray, Dion doesn’t come off as a diva.

This is an artist whose singing is a source of self-joy, identity and direction. “My voice is the conductor of my life,” she explains. Without her nuclear croon, she wonders who she is and what she can do.

Dion sees herself as an apple tree. To the concertgoers who came to see her, she gave shiny fruit. And now? “I don’t want them to wait in line if I don’t have apples for them.”

There have been others in Dion’s situation. Consider Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot, icons who returned to the stage in diminished form after serious illnesses. Their fans came back to see them – not for the apples, but for the tree.