I Am: Celine Dion review – a 'raw, heartbreaking and deeply moving' documentary

A still of Celine Dion in Prime Video film, 'I Am: Celine Dion'.

This isn't your average 'vanity project'

(Image credit: Alamy / Everett Collection / Amazon Prime Video)

published 26 June 2024

It's standard procedure for showbiz documentaries to claim audiences will "never have seen their star like this before". In the case of "I Am: Celine Dion", "it is actually true", said Neil McCormick in The Telegraph.

Prime Video's film chronicles Dion's 17-year battle with stiff person syndrome – a rare neurological disorder that causes stiffness and painful muscle spasms. Perhaps worst of all for "one of the most technically gifted singers of our time", is the devastating impact the chronic condition can have on the voice.

The "Queen of Power Ballads" is seen in the throes of a "full-blown existential crisis" as she struggles to come to terms with the implications of the illness. Forgoing her usual glam attire, the Dion we see is make-up free with "granny glasses" and a bun, "wobbling precariously between denial, despair and defiance" that the "version of her life and self" as a singer is over.

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Directed by Oscar-nominated documentary-maker Irene Taylor, "I Am: Celine Dion" brings together archival material spanning the star's four-decade career, with interviews and behind-the-scenes footage dating back to 2021 when she was forced to cancel her Las Vegas residency.

The film's starkest and "most shocking" insight into Dion's condition is an almost 10-minute "unvarnished" recording of the Canadian singer experiencing an agonising spasm. "At the risk of being cliche", said Adrian Horton in The Guardian, the only word that sprang to mind when watching Dion consent "via grunt" to being filmed when she is being immobilised by a seizure is "brave".

There are lighter moments, said McCormick in The Telegraph. During an "amusing monologue about fashion fetishism", Dion tours her 12,000-sq-ft warehouse where she keeps all of her couture outfits, shoes and trinkets in a "perfectly maintained museum to herself".

It's all very "personal and sincere", said Peter Debruge in Variety, but it's also "managed to within an inch of its life"; you get the feeling that Taylor didn't want to include anything "her subject didn't approve of". Still, she creates a "moving portrait" of the singer, peppered with "clearly unrehearsed" moments that capture Dion's humour and warmth.

All in all, said Lovia Gyarkye in The Hollywood Reporter, the film is "as much about the singer" as the realities of living with a chronic illness. The "visceral glimpse" into her pain offers a "jolting reminder" of the impact the condition has had on Dion, "not just as a star, but as a person".

Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.