This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.
To get to talk about Aline, to share what it is like to watch the film for the first time, is the honor of my career. I am touched. Privileged. Blessed.
Having the platform to preach about and celebrate the unauthorized French biopic of Céline Dion, which secured the rights to a handful of her songs but cannot use her name and in which the film’s 58-year-old writer-director also stars as Aline/Céline from ages 5 to 50, is incredibly meaningful to me.
The last time I felt this euphoric, I was in Las Vegas as Dion herself was standing on an ascending pedestal surrounded by a cascade of water, whipping her crystal-beaded cape as she unleashed the key change in “My Heart Will Go On.” I saw God then, and He She has returned to me again now in another, if perhaps eyebrow-raising and slightly unnerving, form: as Aline.
There are events in life that shake you to the core of your being. The essence of your soul shifts. The metadata that dictates who you are transforms. This happened on June 3, 2021. That was the day the first trailer for Aline was released.
The film would premiere that summer at the Cannes Film Festival, where a slew of bewildered and yet ecstatic—truly, the Céline vibe—write-ups first emerged. An eternity has passed since then, during which it’s become my mission to experience Aline for myself. Now that I have, it is my wish that all of you get to one day do the same.
Aline finally hits select theaters in the U.S. April 8, which will henceforth be a religious holiday.
There are things that one must know about this film, questions that must be answered, such as: Excuse me? Huh? What the…? And, why?
Aline is directed by, co-written by, and stars Valérie Lemercier. The French filmmaker plays Aline Dieu, a French-Canadian entertainer who is discovered at age 12, forges an intense romantic relationship with a manager two decades her senior, and becomes one of the most successful entertainers in history thanks to songs like “My Heart Will Go On” and a groundbreaking Las Vegas residency.
This might sound like the life of a woman we know and love named Céline Dion. But it is actually that of Aline Dieu, a name that translates to “Aline God,” to the extent that the disclaimer playing before it starts reads, “This film is inspired by the life of Céline Dion. It is, however, a work of fiction.” Sure!
The movie takes place over the course of nearly 90 years. Yes, you read that correctly.
It begins in 1932, when Aline’s parents meet in Quebec and start their brood that eventually grows to 14 children, the last of whom is little Aline. Things hopscotch through time. We meet the Dieu family at a wedding, where 5-year-old Aline gets up to perform. It is imperative that you be reminded at this point that, even at 5 years old, Aline is played by Lemercier, who was around 55 at the time of filming.
The little girl who skips to the microphone looks every bit the normal child, but then she turns around and you realize it is Lemercier, adult woman, shrunken through VFX to the size of a kindergartener.
Valérie Lemercier as teenage Aline in Aline
GaumontIt’s not the last time you think, “What in the Eddie Murphy’s Norbit damned hell?” as you watch this film. Things, somehow are even more unsettling as Aline is age 12, and then a teenager, with all her gawky movements embodied by Lemercier. And it’s not that you ever get used to it so much as you accept the absurdity as a fact of life, one that finally blurs into a semblance of normalcy as Aline ages into her teenage years, then her twenties, and beyond.
This casting gimmick is so unshakably bizarre that you’d imagine it would define the film completely. (In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lemercier said that they had even shot footage of her playing Aline at six months old, but, thankfully, scrapped that.)
So let me blow your mind when I say that, in the end, this movie is actually… great? Not in the cheeky, histrionic way where we exaggerate how much we love something for laughs. No, Aline, as unusual as it is, is also quite moving, at times even invigorating—and, above all, a poignant homage to Dion herself.
The adult-as-child casting nightmares aside, the start of the film is a lively and quite funny portrait of a large, loving Quebecois family.
There’s a bit of camp and cheekiness to that opening stretch. When manager Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel), the stand-in for Dion’s eventual husband René Angélil, accidentally calls her “Céline,” her mother (played by scene-stealer Danielle Fichaud) corrects him: “Aline.” You’re forgiven for waiting for her to look into the camera and wink.
But the remarkable thing about Aline is that it, overwhelmingly, takes itself seriously.
Yes, it’s a brisk sprint through the various milestones and personal struggles of a singer who is “inspired by the life of Céline Dion.” But it’s also a passionately-made love story and, to be honest, pretty rousing recreation of Dion’s most memorable moments.
I don’t love the fact that the controversial relationship between the 12-year-old and the 30-something who eventually became lovers is at the center of the narrative here, but it was the center of Dion’s story, so it makes sense.
The whole question of grooming is briefly addressed, as Aline’s mother confronts Guy-Claude and threatens him: “If you ever put your fat paws on her…” But the film is explicit that Guy-Claude doesn’t pursue a relationship until she is 20, and that Aline is of age when physical acts are initiated. And Lemercier has said one advantage of her being an adult playing Aline at age 12 is that it makes those scenes less creepy. OK.
But the portrait of how Aline balances her success and fame with wanting to be a mother and wife ends up having more substance than you might expect in a kind of film that could easily veer into terrible Lifetime TV biopic territory.
Lemercier even won the César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for her performance. She’s that good. The Céline Dion kookiness and the endearingly clumsy performance style is all there, but so is an unexpected humanity.
What I’m saying is that I’ve found a way to save the Oscars. The Academy Award goes to: Céline. Shit, I mean: Aline.
