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The very best praise one may give the French serio-comic filmmaker Valérie Lemercier’s “Aline,” a biopic of Celine Dion wherein Lemercier performs a fictionalized model of the pop star from infancy by widowhood, is that it evokes the disorientation of discovering the singer as she was on her first album: a 13-year-old with snaggleteeth. The film’s ardour is unbelievable — however, boy, is it embodied in one thing awkward.
There’s barely time to regulate to the sight of the grownup Lemercier shrunken by cinematic trickery to the scale of a kid earlier than we’re pressured to grapple with the dawning consciousness that this tribute is meant to be heartfelt. “Aline” is not any prank, regardless that the cinematography is as static as a Saturday Evening Dwell skit. The director and her co-writer, Brigitte Buc, whisk by Dion’s timeline with effectivity. Lemercier observes the singer, right here renamed Aline Dieu, as she shifts from ballads belted to her mom (Danielle Fichaud) to ones aimed toward her Svengali and husband-to-be (Sylvain Marcel), who’s sincerely introduced as her one nice love. Lemercier trots out Dion’s well-known outfits and interviews, her 1998 Academy Awards efficiency of “My Coronary heart Will Go On” and, when the motion shifts to Dion’s Las Vegas residencies, does a fairly good job imitating the star’s coltish, unpredictable dance strikes.
All “Aline” wants is some extent. The closest factor to 1 is Lemercier’s insistence that Dion wasn’t merely a larger-than-life icon however a mortal, too, with relatable worries about her youngsters, her sleep schedule and, er, getting misplaced in her 40-room mansion. To this finish, in a movie full of covers (splendidly sung by Victoria Sio), Lemercier opens and closes with “Ordinaire,” the Robert Charlebois track: “I’m not a circus freak,” her star sings, including, “I’d prefer to be understood.”
Aline
Rated PG-13 for grace notes of sexual conditions and language. Working time: 2 hours 8 minutes. In theaters.
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