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      Celine Dion Cancels the Remainder of Her World Tour

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      The pop star, who announced in December that she was suffering from a rare neurological condition, said she was “working really hard to build back my strength.”The powerhouse pop superstar Celine Dion announced Friday morning on social media that she was canceling the remainder of her Courage World Tour through April 2024 in order to focus on her recovery from a rare autoimmune and neurological disease.Dion, 55, first shared publicly that she was grappling with the medical condition — called stiff person syndrome, which causes progressive stiffness and severe muscle spasms — in an emotional Instagram video that she posted in December 2022, as she canceled or postponed a number of tour dates.“I am so sorry to disappoint all of you once again,” Dion said in the statement on Friday. “I’m working really hard to build back my strength, but touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100 percent. It’s not fair to you to keep postponing the shows, and even though it breaks my heart, it’s best that we cancel everything now until I’m really ready to be back onstage again. I want you all to know, I’m not giving up … And I can’t wait to see you again!”The remaining 2023 tour dates had been scheduled to run from Aug. 26 in Amsterdam through Oct. 4 in Helsinki, Finland; then from March 6, 2024, in Prague through April 22, 2024, in London. Tickets purchased for the canceled dates can be refunded via the original point of sale, according to the statement.Before the pandemic paused Dion’s tour in March 2020, she had completed the first 52 dates of the tour, in North America. “Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I am used to,” she said in the video posted last year.Dion can be seen in her first feature movie role, alongside Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan, in the romantic comedy-drama “Love Again,” which was released this month.After the announcement of her illness last year, Dion, known for her renditions of ballads like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On,” was met with a remarkable outpouring from fans, particularly in Quebec, the French-speaking Canadian province where Dion was born. More

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      A ‘Titanic’ Parody Show That Draws Fans Near, Far, Wherever They Are

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      Some of the devotees of ‘Titanique,’ which recently moved to the larger Daryl Roth Theater after months of sold-out shows, have seen it more than a dozen times.On a recent Tuesday night at the Daryl Roth Theater in Union Square, temperatures outside hovered in the mid-30s, but inside, a few hundred 30-somethings in sailor hats were sipping “Iceberg” cocktails and grooving to Lizzo’s “Juice.” A gleaming silver and blue tinsel heart hung suspended above the stage like a disco ball.And then: The woman they were waiting for arrived.“It is me, Céline Dion,” said Marla Mindelle, one of the writers and stars of the “Titanic” musical parody show “Titanique,” casting aside a black garbage bag cloak to reveal a shimmering gold gown — a nod to the witch’s entrance from “Into the Woods” — and sashaying her way to the stage to a tidal wave of applause.The sold-out crowd of 270, who sported tight green sequin dresses, black leather jackets and hot pink glasses, had gathered for a special performance commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1997 blockbuster film, set to hits from Dion’s catalog. Since opening at Asylum NYC’s 150-seat basement theater in Chelsea in June, thanks to strong word of mouth and a passionate social media following, the show has been consistently sold out.“The movie and Céline are still in the zeitgeist,” said Constantine Rousouli, who plays “Titanique”’s romantic male lead, Jack, and created the show with Mindelle and Tye Blue, who also directs.From left, Tye Blue, Constantine Rousouli, Nicholas Connell and Marla Mindelle, the creative team behind “Titanique.”Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesThe show has won praise for its campy tone, improvised moments and energetic cast, and has cultivated a fan army of “TiStaniques,” some of whom have seen the 100-minute show more than a dozen times.“It’s filled with so much joy and heart and just dumb fun,” said Ryan Bloomquist, 30, who works in Broadway marketing and has seen the show five times.The Unsinkable Celine DionThe Canadian superstar has won over fans with her octave-hopping renditions of songs like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On.”Rare Disorder Diagnosis: Celine Dion announced that she had a neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome, which forced her to cancel and reschedule dates on her planned 2023 tour.Quebec’s Love Will Go On: The extraordinary outpouring in Quebec that greeted Dion’s announcement showed how her fandom, and ideas of national identity in her home province, have evolved.A Consummate Professional: At a concert in Brooklyn in 2020, the pop diva was fully in command of her glorious voice — and the crowd gathered to bask in it.Adored by Fans: Dion can count on some of the most loyal supporters in the industry. In return, she gives all of herself to them.Partially improvised and best enjoyed with a drink in hand, “Titanique,” which retells the story of “Titanic” from Dion’s perspective and through her music, began life as you might expect: during a drunken discussion between Mindelle, 38 (Broadway’s “Sister Act” and “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella”), and Rousouli (“Wicked,” “Hairspray”), 34, at a bar in Los Angeles in 2016.Rousouli and Mindelle, a fellow “Titanic” fan, had become friends while doing dinner theater and pop parody musicals in Los Angeles. And now, Rousouli had an idea: What if they did a “Titanic” parody musical — using Dion’s songs — and made the Canadian singer herself a character in the show?He said he thought, “She’s just going to narrate the show like ‘Joseph,’” referring to the 1968 Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” (It was during this same conversation, he said, that the trash bag entrance idea in the first scene came to life.)Convinced they were onto something, Mindelle and Rousouli worked with Blue, 42, an acquaintance from the Los Angeles dinner theater circuit, to write a script. (The music supervisor Nicholas Connell, 35, did the arrangements and orchestrations.)A giant tinsel version of the blue diamond featured in the 1997 film.Evelyn Freja for The New York Times“I never considered myself a writer,” Rousouli said in a lively conversation earlier this month with Mindelle, Blue and Connell in the theater’s basement bar space. “People ask me now, ‘What was the process like?’ And it was like I closed my eyes, and all of a sudden there was draft there and I’d written this whole musical.” They wrote the initial book in a month and a half, he said.They began doing pop-up concerts of the show-in-progress at small venues around Los Angeles in 2017 and then New York the next year. The first performances were bare-bones affairs, with no set or costumes and, according to Mindelle, a “really bad” Dion accent in the first readings. But audiences loved them — and many came back for a second or third time.After a pandemic delay, they opened the first fully staged production of “Titanique” at the Asylum in June. The first month was a little scary, Blue said, with entire rows sitting empty. But by July, thanks to social media buzz, they were selling out shows. It helped that Frankie Grande, who recently had his final performance in the dual role of Jack’s pal Luigi and the Canadian actor Victor Garber, has a famous half sister, Ariana, who gave the show a shout-out after attending.“Social media and word of mouth has just been wildfire for us,” Mindelle said.Soon, celebrities were coming to see it, among them Garber, who played the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews in the film, and Lloyd Webber.“He looked at us and he goes, ‘You’re all mad,’” Rousouli said, affecting a British accent in imitation of Lloyd Webber. “I said, ‘Cool, thanks, we are.’”The production’s scrappy spirit remained when it moved to the larger Daryl Roth Theater in November, where the show now features richer sound and around 100 more seats.“I was afraid we were going to lose that sense of intimacy and charm,” Mindelle said. “But we’re now running in the audience the entire time; I can still make eye contact with people, I can still touch every person.”Members of the cast rehearsing. Unlike a typical Broadway musical, the “Titanique” script is updated weekly, sometimes daily, to stay current with pop culture references and TikTok trends.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesPart of the appeal, said Ty Hanes, 29, a musical theater actor who has gone 13 times, is that no two performances are the same. He looks forward to seeing what Mindelle will do in the five-minute scene between Rose and Jack that she improvises every night (some of his favorites: a bit about a toenail falling off and a riff on Spam, the tinned pork product).“You can tell they just have a blast changing stuff up a bit every night,” he said.“Sometimes it really works, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Mindelle said.“No, it does,” Rousouli said. “It always lands.”Unlike a Broadway musical like “Wicked,” in which the script does not change after the show opens, Rousouli said, they tweak the show weekly — sometimes daily — to stay current on pop culture moments and TikTok trends. On a recent night, a joke featuring a Patti LuPone cardboard cutout drew loud laughs (“You can’t even be here, this is a union gig!”), and a line originally uttered by Jennifer Coolidge’s character in the Season 2 finale of the HBO satire “The White Lotus” (“These gays, they’re trying to murder me.”), now spoken by Russell Daniels performing in drag as Rose’s mother, received a mid-show standing ovation.“People feel like they’re part of something special every night,” Rousouli said.One aspect of the show’s popularity that has been rewarding, if unintentional, Mindelle said, is how L.G.B.T.Q. audiences have embraced it. “I never thought that we were writing something inherently so queer,” said Mindelle, who like Rousouli, Blue and Connell identifies as queer. “It’s just intrinsic in our DNA and our sense of humor.”Bloomquist, who is gay, said the show resonated with his personal experience. “Everything that’s coming out of the show’s mouth, you’re like ‘Oh my God, this is just how I speak with my friends,’” he said.The musical, which announced its fourth extension last week and continues to sell out a majority of its performances, is set to close May 14, but Mindelle said an even longer run may be in the cards.“I think the show has the potential to be much like the song,” she said. “We hope it will go on and on and on.” More

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      25 Years After ‘Titanic,’ Quebec’s Love for Céline Dion Will Go On

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      The outpouring that greeted the singer’s announcement that she has a rare neurological condition showed how both Céline fandom, and ideas of national identity in her home province, have evolved.MONTREAL — It was a Friday night in Montreal, and hundreds of euphoric revelers were dancing and singing “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” at a sold-out Céline Dion tribute party. One young man vogued in a homemade version of the gold-tinted headpiece of singed peacock feathers that Dion wore at the Met Gala a few years ago. Another gawked at a mini-shrine of Dion-inspired wigs, showcasing her hairstyles through the decades.“In an era of arrogant stars, she is always authentic,” Simon Venne, the voguer, a 38-year-old stylist, gushed. “She is everything to us, a source of pride, our queen.”If there was ever a sense that Quebec, the French-speaking province of Dion’s birth, was conflicted about Dion’s rise to global superstardom with pop hits that she often sang in English, it has been dispelled. She now occupies an exalted space here, experiencing a cultural renaissance as Quebec’s younger generation has unabashedly embraced her: Radio Canada, the national French language broadcaster, parses her life on a podcast translated as “Céline—She’s The Boss!”; a recent docuseries called “It’s Cool to Like Céline Dion” explored her appeal to millennials, and Céline Dion drag competitions have been surging.Dion’s emotional announcement this month that she is suffering from a rare neurological condition called stiff person syndrome, forcing her to postpone upcoming tour dates, was met with an extraordinary outpouring. Québécois politicians from across the political spectrum, including both Quebec’s premiere, François Legault, and the head of a party advocating Quebec’s independence from Canada, jockeyed to express sympathy for Dion, 54. Fans commiserated over social media. A headline in Le Devoir, an influential Quebec newspaper, called her “Céline, Queen of the Québécois.” Dion, the newspaper noted, had attained the status of untouchable icon after years of being panned by critics and mocked by others.“It’s like hearing your aunt is sick,” Venne, the feathered fan, said. “Céline is famous around the world, but here she is family.”A sold-out Céline Dion tribute party in Montreal drew fans who dressed like her, gawked at Dion-inspired wigs, and danced and sang along to her music. Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesThe intensity of the reaction here — 25 years after the premiere of the blockbuster film “Titanic,” which helped make Dion’s bombastically exuberant “My Heart Will Go On” ubiquitous — shows how much Céline fandom and ideas of Québécois identity have evolved over time as the province, like its most famous daughter, has come of age.The Unsinkable Celine DionThe Canadian superstar has won over fans with her octave-hopping renditions of songs like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On.”Rare Disorder Diagnosis: Celine Dion announced that she had a neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome, which forced her to cancel and reschedule dates on her planned 2023 tour.A Consummate Professional: At a concert in Brooklyn in 2020, the pop diva was fully in command of her glorious voice — and the crowd gathered to bask in it.Adored by Fans: Dion can count on some of the most loyal supporters in the industry. In return, she gives all of herself to them.From the Archives: Dion achieved international stardom in the 1990s after charming audiences in French Canada and France. Here is what The Times wrote about her in 1997.During a recent visit to Céline Dion Boulevard in Charlemagne, a soulless stretch of road in the gritty working-class town of about 6,000 on the outskirts of Montreal where Dion was born, a group of 20-somethings said it was no longer embarrassing to admit to liking her music.“Being stuck at home during the pandemic made people nostalgic for the past, and everything old and vintage is in fashion,” said Gabriel Guénette, 26, a university student and sometime Uber delivery man, explaining why he and his friends were singing “The Power of Love” during karaoke nights. Dion’s unbridled message of hope and optimism, he added, resonated during these uncertain times.Older residents in Charlemagne still refer to her as “notre petite Céline” — our little Céline — and recall her days as a shy teenager who performed French ballads with her 13 brothers and sisters at her family’s restaurant. Younger residents — including Meghan Arsenault, 15, who attends the same high school Dion did — grew up singing her songs.Across Quebec, a Francophone province of 8.5 million people that has been buffeted by centuries of subjugation and fears of being subsumed by the English language, Dion has at times been a polarizing figure. Even as many fans ardently embraced her, she was dismissed by some critics as the cultural equivalent of poutine, the Québécois snack of French fries and cheese curds drenched in gravy drunkenly and guiltily consumed at 3 a.m.Some elites balked at her success, seeing in her sprawling working class family, her garish outfits and her broken English an uncomfortable mirror of an old Quebec they preferred to forget. Some considered her quétaine, cheesy in Québécois argot.Céline Dion Boulevard in Charlemagne, her hometown.Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesOlder residents in Charlemagne still call her “notre petite Céline” — our little Céline.Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesAnd her singing in English has, at times, been an affront to hard-core Francophone nationalists. But when Dion thanked the audience with a “Merci!” at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 after singing “The Power of The Dream,” the single word reverberated across the province, an affirmation that French Canada had gone global.Martin Proulx, a producer who hosted the podcast, “Céline, She’s the Boss!” recalled that as a gay teenager in Montreal in the 1990s, he hid the fact that he was listening to her “Let’s Talk About Love” album on his Sony Walkman. “It wasn’t cool to love Céline when I was in high school — kids my age were listening to hip-hop and heavy rock and she was for soccer moms who watched Oprah,” he recalled.Now, he said, he could proudly proclaim his ardor, in part because a more confident Quebec has shed some of its past complexes. The younger generation of Québécois, he said, seems less hung up than their parents or grandparents on issues of language and identity, and more likely to embrace Dion’s global stardom, financial success and bilingualism as a template for their own international aspirations.“We used to roll our eyes — now we think she’s pure genius,” Mr. Proulx said. “She never changed. We did.”Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Quebec-born music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said that his first memory of Dion was from 1984, when he was eight years old. Dion, who was 16, sang a song about a dove in front of Pope John Paul II and 60,000 people at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. Nézet-Séguin said he had surged with pride that she was a fellow Quebecer, and said that he sees Dion as a “diva” in the operatic sense of the word.“When I think about a diva, I think about personality, having something recognizable artistically, and one can’t deny the virtuosic aspect of Céline’s singing,” he said.Bennett’s Dion collection is extensive.Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesHe even has a custom Dion sport coat.Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesThe intense interest in Dion is hardly limited to Quebec. “Aline,” a highly unusual, fictionalized film drawn from her life, drew buzz at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. When a musical parody of “Titanic” called “Titanique” recently moved to a larger Off Broadway theater in New York, its producers promised “More shows. More seats. More Céline.” And Dion is set to appear alongside Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan in a romantic comedy called “Love Again” that is expected in theaters in North America in May.The fascination with Dion endures in part because her Cinderella story never grows old. The youngest of 14 children of an accordion-playing butcher and a homemaker from Charlemagne, Dion’s first bed as a child was a drawer. At the age of 12, she co-wrote her first song, “Ce n’était qu’un rêve,” with the help of her mother and her brother Jacques. Her brother Michel sent a cassette demo to the impresario René Angélil, who became her manager and, later, her husband.Dion had a complete makeover, disappearing for 18 months in 1986 to study English, cap her teeth, perm her hair, and take voice and dance lessons. A star was born.When Angélil died in 2016, two days before his 74th birthday, his two-day, meticulously choreographed funeral at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica was televised by the CBC, the national broadcaster, and flags were lowered at half-mast across Quebec. Dion, veiled in black, stood by her husband’s open coffin for seven hours, greeting Quebec dignitaries and the public.Nearly every inch of Mario Bennett’s cramped basement apartment is decorated with Céline Dion memorabilia. Guillaume Simoneau for The New York TimesIn the years since, Dion recast her analog image for the Instagram era. A Vetements Titanic hoodie she wore in Paris in 2016 broke the internet. A few years later, she stole the show at the camp-themed Met Gala, in an Oscar de la Renta clinging champagne-colored bodysuit embellished with silvery sequins. Her zany, self-deprecating appearance on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke in 2019 from Las Vegas, during which she sang “My Heart Will Go On” in front of a replica of the Titanic’s bow at the Bellagio Hotel fountain, helped some people who had made fun of her realize that she was in on the joke.Now her fandom seems as strong as ever.Mario Bennett, 36, who works in a concert hall, began covering every inch of his cramped basement apartment with Céline Dion memorabilia at the start of the pandemic. He said that throughout his life, Ms. Dion’s powerful voice had been a clarion call to dream big. Among his prized possessions is an unauthorized collectible Céline doll, wearing a mini version of the midnight blue velvet gown that the singer wore to the Oscars in 1998.“She makes me feel that anything is possible,” he said.Guy Hermon, an Israeli drag queen who emigrated to Montreal a decade ago and absorbed Quebec culture — and the French language — by trying to embody Dion, said he had never been a fan of her music but invented his Dion alter ego, “Crystal Slippers” out of necessity on the Dion-obsessed Québécois drag circuit.After years of mimicking Ms. Dion, he said he had come to appreciate her. “She just wants everyone to be happy,” he said. More

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      Celine Dion Says She Has Stiff Person Syndrome, a Rare Disorder

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      In an emotional Instagram video, the pop superstar explained she had stiff person syndrome and is postponing shows to rebuild her strength “and ability to perform again.”In an emotional Instagram video on Thursday, the Canadian pop superstar Celine Dion announced that a severe neurological disorder had forced her to cancel and reschedule dates on her planned 2023 tour.In the five-minute-plus video, Dion said she had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare autoimmune and neurological disease that is the cause of the spasms she said she had been suffering.“Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life, sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I am used to,” she said.“It hurts me to tell you today,” she continued, as her voice cracked, “this means I won’t be ready to restart my tour in Europe in February.” She said she was working with doctors and therapists to rebuild her strength “and ability to perform again.”Dion, a theatrical and powerful singer best known for her octave-busting renditions of songs like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On,” had earlier postponed her most recent Las Vegas residency and European tour while canceling North American tour dates because of health issues. Thursday’s announcement will push her spring 2023 shows to the following year while canceling eight of her summer 2023 performances.“All I know is singing,” she said. “It’s what I’ve done all my life, and it’s what I love to do the most. I miss you so much, I miss seeing all of you, being on the stage, performing for you. I always give 100 percent when I do my shows, but my condition is not allowing me to give you that right now.”“I love you guys so much, and I really hope I can see you again real soon,” she added. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Titanique’ Review: A Musical Finds Its Sea Legs

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      The camp reimagining of the maritime blockbuster revs up into increasing absurdity and Celine Dion songs.“Titanic” got a lot right. After all, it grossed roughly a bazillion dollars, cemented Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as stars, spawned catchphrases and iconic poses and, most important, reminded us that romance was not dead.Yet some fans still think that wasn’t enough. After all, the movie featured only one Celine Dion song, and you had to wait over three hours to hear it. Clearly this structural defect had to be fixed.Enter “Titanique,” a musical retelling of James Cameron’s nautical blockbuster in which the co-authors, Tye Blue (also the director), Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli, have cranked the Celine-o-meter all the way up. They added not just a bunch of her songs to the story, but the Canadian superstar herself. As played by Mindelle (Broadway’s “Sister Act” and “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella”), she is now a narrator who keeps popping in and out of the action.The premise is that Dion was on the doomed cruise liner in 1912 and is somehow still around to explain what happened — cue “I’m Alive,” of course. The singer mingles with the passengers, and by mingle I mean she shamelessly tries to overshadow them, sneaking in one of her hits at every opportunity. As James Corden said in his epic “Carpool Karaoke” with Dion: “You really have a song for every moment.” (The music supervisor Nicholas Connell did the arrangements and orchestrations.)Unlike, say, Bob McSmith and Tobly McSmith’s spoofs (“Love Actually? The Unauthorized Musical Parody,” “Showgirls! The Musical!”), “Titanique” does not feature an original score. It feels closer to “Cruel Intentions: The ’90s Musical Experience,” which added a number of tracks from that decade to its adaptation of the film (itself an update of “Dangerous Liaisons”). Rousouli, who portrayed the scheming Sebastian Valmont in that 2017 production, distinguishes himself again here as the lovelorn Jack. He renders him as an aw-shucks, wide-eyed naïf straight out of “Newsies,” a very funny performance that teeters inches from caricature yet never quite spills into it.“Titanique,” playing at Asylum NYC, incorporates a measure of improvisation and a strategy of shattering the fourth wall.Emilio Madrid“Titanique” is playing at the subterranean Asylum NYC, the former home of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe, a fitting spot for a show that incorporates a degree of improvisation. But it takes a little while to find its sea legs. The first scenes are frantic yet oddly sluggish, and it looks as if the entire evening will consist of Mindelle leaning hard on the goofball humor, idiosyncratic body language and seemingly random non sequiturs that have made Dion’s interviews so popular on YouTube.But eventually “Titanique” comes into its own as it revs up into increasing absurdity and the actors try to out-ham one another. Contrast that with Michael Kinnan’s one-man retelling of “Titanic,” “Never Let Go”: If that production captured the emotion running through both the movie and the feeling of watching it, this one doubles down on “Titanic” and Dion as modern camp icons. And speaking of camp: Ryan Duncan, in the drag role of Rose’s mother, is reminiscent of Everett Quinton at his Ridiculous Theatrical Company finest. Younger pop-culture fiends are more likely to spot Frankie Grande — yes, Ariana’s half brother — as Jack’s pal Luigi and Victor Garber (who played Thomas Andrews, the ship’s builder, in the film).That Grande plays the actor and his character in “Titanic” is typical of the show’s fourth-wall-shattering strategy, which is pretty much its entire strategy. As the production spins ever more crazily into a finale that involves that darn iceberg (Jaye Alexander), a lip-syncing contest and “River Deep, Mountain High,” you might as well admit you have been clubbed into satisfied submission.TitaníqueThrough Sept. 25 at Asylum NYC, Manhattan; titaniquemusical.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

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      ‘Aline’ Review: Tale as Odd as Time

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      Celine Dion’s life story gets an unconventional telling from the French filmmaker Valérie Lemercier in this creative but flawed biopic.The best compliment one can give the French serio-comic filmmaker Valérie Lemercier’s “Aline,” a biopic of Celine Dion in which Lemercier plays a fictionalized version of the pop star from infancy through 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 movie’s passion is incredible — but, boy, is it embodied in something awkward.There is barely time to adjust to the sight of the adult Lemercier shrunken through cinematic trickery to the size of a child before we’re forced to grapple with the dawning awareness that this tribute is intended to be heartfelt. “Aline” is no prank, even though the cinematography is as static as a Saturday Night Live skit. The director and her co-writer, Brigitte Buc, whisk through Dion’s timeline with efficiency. Lemercier observes the singer, here renamed Aline Dieu, as she shifts from ballads belted to her mother (Danielle Fichaud) to ones aimed at her Svengali and husband-to-be (Sylvain Marcel), who is sincerely presented as her one great love. Lemercier trots out Dion’s famous outfits and interviews, her 1998 Academy Awards performance of “My Heart Will Go On” and, when the action shifts to Dion’s Las Vegas residencies, does a quite good job imitating the star’s coltish, unpredictable dance moves.All “Aline” needs is a point. The closest thing to one is Lemercier’s insistence that Dion wasn’t simply a larger-than-life icon but a mortal, too, with relatable worries about her children, her sleep schedule and, er, getting lost in her 40-room mansion. To this end, in a film crammed with covers (splendidly sung by Victoria Sio), Lemercier opens and closes with “Ordinaire,” the Robert Charlebois song: “I am not a circus freak,” her star sings, adding, “I’d like to be understood.”AlineRated PG-13 for grace notes of sexual situations and language. Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes. In theaters. More

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      A Filmmaker’s Journey to the Center of Celine Dion

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      In her kooky, rambunctious biopic “Aline,” the French comedian Valérie Lemercier drew from her own life to play the Quebecois pop star at every stage of hers.Valérie Lemercier’s new film is about an endearingly quirky, mega-famous Canadian belter. Her hits include “My Heart Will Go On” and “The Power of Love.” She was happily married to her much older manager.No, not Celine Dion, but Aline Dieu.“Aline,” which Lemercier directed and stars in, is kooky and heartfelt, loving and wonderfully bonkers — not unlike the superstar who inspired it in all but name. The movie scrupulously incorporates the major themes present in most traditional biopics — family, love, struggle, art — while slyly tweaking them. And a decisive step was switching from Celine to Aline.“I started with the real names,” Lemercier said in a video call from Paris in December. “But Brigitte Buc, my co-writer, told me, ‘Change them, it’ll be simpler.’ And it was true: It became easier, we could make up things.”Ahead of its American release on April 8, “Aline” has already earned accolades. The multihyphenate Lemercier, one of France’s most idiosyncratic artists for more than three decades, won the César Award for best actress in February; the movie, her sixth behind the camera, earned 10 nominations. “Artists publicly recommended the film, and that’s not common in France,” Lemercier said. “I got a lot of supportive messages from directors, as if they were saying I had earned the right to be in their club.”While the film starts with a disclaimer that it is “a work of fiction,” it uses Dion music (Lemercier lip-syncs excerpts from the Dion songbook performed by Victoria Sio) and is largely faithful to her story arc, from childhood in a hardscrabble Quebecois family to international stardom and, most importantly, to her passionate relationship with René Angélil, the music manager who discovered her when she was 12 and he was 38, and became her husband 14 years later.Still, “Aline” reflects distinct aesthetic and narrative choices, so much so that after the film’s presentation at the 2021 Cannes festival, Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times wrote that “it steers into its eccentricities so hard that it somehow boomerangs back into auteurism.”Among the many flourishes was the decision by Lemercier, 58, to play Aline at every stage in her life — including as a 5-year-old, with a little C.G.I. and forced-perspective tricks. This would not have surprised audiences in France, where “Aline” came out in November, because Lemercier, known for her biting comic style, has long portrayed children in TV sketches and in her one-woman performances; in one of her signatures sketches, she plays a twitchy contestant on a kids’ talent show. “Little girls, more than little boys, fascinate me — what they say, what they imagine, what goes on in their mind,” Lemercier said.“Aline” makes ample use of Celine Dion’s songbook, with Lemercier lip-syncing to the hits.Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn FilmsBut her choice to tackle young Celine herself was a moral, as well as artistic, one. Lemercier, as an adult, felt she was better equipped to handle potentially sensitive scenes, such as when the young Aline visits a dentist.“I’m often asked why I played her as a child, and I often say I’m like a lawyer defending her client: I’m not going to send out my assistant to handle the beginning, when it’s tough,” she said. “I don’t want to send out a kid to the dentist so she can open her mouth wide to display her crooked teeth. I heard unpleasant comments about my appearance when I was a child, so I wanted to be the one on the receiving end in the movie. I didn’t want to just play the sexy, glamorous woman we see at the end.”There are hints of autobiography throughout the film, particularly in young Aline’s drive to perform. Lemercier grew up in a farming family with three sisters and learned quickly that her clowning around could lighten her depressed mother’s mood. “When I made people laugh at a young age, even younger than five, I immediately felt that I existed, that I had a purpose, that I would not be useless,” Lemercier said. “For me, it’s the pleasure of making people laugh, and for her, it’s the pleasure of singing.”Born in Normandy, Lemercier moved to Paris at 18, and her career took off in the late 1980s thanks to cameos in the sketch series “Palace.” Her commercial breakthrough came in 1993 with the blockbuster “The Visitors,” which earned her a César for best supporting actress, and she made her feature debut as a director in 1997 with “Quadrille,” an archly stylish, beautifully art-directed adaptation of a Sacha Guitry play.It was through one of her solo outings, in the mid-1990s, that she was converted to the church of Celine. “I was doing a show at the Théâtre de Paris, and an usher, who was a Celine fan, sang me her songs,” Lemercier recalled. She decided to make a film about the star after spotting her at the funeral for Angélil, who died in 2016. “He wasn’t there anymore, and I wondered how she would cope. It touched me.”For French viewers, the film’s affectionate tone scrambled their notions of Lemercier and her style. Her humor can be quite dark, especially at the theater, and she gleefully exploits the jarring discrepancy between her elegant, poised appearance — she looked impeccably put together in our video chat — and crude, often scatological jokes. Her satirical barbs have not spared peers like Juliette Binoche, who was once the target of a biting fake commercial.“Everybody assumed I was going to make a parody, but that was never my plan,” Lemercier said of “Aline.” “I’m not much for tenderness; it really bugs me, generally speaking, and I tend to go more for sarcasm. But this time around — no,” she continued. “I wanted to be sincere, to do an open love letter.” (Some of Dion’s siblings have criticized the film for, among other things, what they felt was a cartoonish portrayal of their family. Early in the process, Lemercier passed on her script to Dion’s French manager, whom she said approved of the tone; a spokesperson stated in an email that “Celine has not seen the movie, nor does she have any comments about it.”)“There is no condescension, no snobbery in the film,” the musician Bertrand Burgalat, who produced Lemercier’s album, “Chante” (1996), and scored two of her movies, said by email. “She does not treat Celine Dion as a pop object, either, like Jeff Koons did with Cicciolina,” he added, referring to the provocateur artist’s relationship with his former wife and muse.If there were emotions in need of some untangling, they came more from Lemercier’s conflicted relationship with Quebec, where her first live appearance, in 1990, had turned into a debacle. “Air Canada had purchased all the seats for its employees, who thought they were going to see Claudine Mercier, a Quebecois imitator,” she said. “Everybody got up and left, and I ended the show in front of an empty room. I cried all night. I was wounded. So this movie was a way to return to Quebec with my head held high. Or at least to be better understood there.”Capturing the Quebecois culture was key to Lemercier, who extensively researched the province’s culture and mores and insisted on local casting. “I demanded — and it was not easy — Quebecois actors who are unknown in France,” she said. “I fought one of the film’s backers, who did not want to hear of them.” Among those actors was Sylvain Marcel, who played the Angélil character (renamed Guy-Claude Kamar) and thus had to help sell the romance between the singer and a man nearly 30 years her senior.“It’s very delicate, because the story revolves around their love,” the Quebecois journalist Denise Bombardier, who once shadowed Dion on tour for a 2009 book, said on the phone.For Marcel, who comes from the same Montreal suburb as Dion, everything flowed from a relatively straightforward motivation. “For me the idea was, ‘You love her, it’s crazy how much you love her,’ ” he said in a video conversation. “And that’s based on what René experienced with her.”The film does take liberties with some details of Dion’s life, but only to find a way into a psyche that, after almost 35 years in the limelight, remains somewhat opaque. “It’s about creating a Celine flavor, a flavor called Aline,” Lemercier said.The most prominent flight of fancy is an extended scene in which Aline walks the streets of Las Vegas, alone and forlorn. And yet for Bombardier, it reaches a greater truth. “It’s probably the most realistic scene in the entire movie,” she said. “She’s locked into her fame — it’s a loneliness we can’t comprehend. There’s a tragic dimension to this type of person, and that’s why I bow down to how perceptive this invented scene is.”Marcel goes even further: “It’s not a biopic, it’s a metaphor about a life that’s extraordinary but also nightmarish sometimes.”For Lemercier, that dark side is part of the equation, but only part. “I don’t talk about it, but when she plays golf for the first time, the balls get in the hole — she’s just a beginner, but it works,” she said. “It’s pleasant to play someone whose dreams come true.” More

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      'Aline': The Crazy Celine Dion Movie at Cannes

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      “Aline,” an unofficial biopic of the singer, boasts a singular casting choice that has all of Cannes buzzing.CANNES, France — The Cannes Film Festival is meant to be a holy temple of cinema, a place where sober works from the most respected directors have their first unveiling. But every so often, something completely off-kilter sneaks through, a film so unlike anything at Cannes that it feels out of place … that is, until it steers into its eccentricities so hard that it somehow boomerangs back into auteurism.These out-of-left-field movies often end up being my favorite experiences of the festival, and that’s why I’ve got to tell you about “Aline,” a wild Celine Dion biopic that screened at Cannes on Tuesday night and reduced the audience to giggles. Let me just get this out of the way: I’m still reeling from the instantly iconic decision of the film’s 57-year-old actress-director Valérie Lemercier to play Celine Dion at every age of her life, including as a 5-year-old child.You see a lot of nervy things at Cannes, but this surely takes the cake.“Aline” begins with a bit of a disclaimer, as the opening title card declares: “This film is inspired by the life of Celine Dion. It is, however, a work of fiction.” That’s why, even though the story follows nearly every element of Dion’s life beat for beat, the main character is instead named Aline Dieu and most of Dion’s best-known songs proved impossible to get the rights to. (Yes, “30 Rock” fans, we’re dealing with a Jackie Jormp-Jomp situation here.)Like Dion, Aline is born into a large Quebec family where she is the youngest of 14 children. Her public debut as a singer comes early: At 5, Aline takes the stage at her brother’s wedding and lets loose with an uncannily powerful singing voice. Dion did that, too, but I’m going to guess there was one crucial difference in real life: When 5-year-old Celine sang at that wedding, she wasn’t sporting the face of an AARP-eligible adult.Danielle Fichaud, left, Valérie Lemercier (yes, the director) and Sylvaine Marcel in “Aline.”Jean-Marie Leroy/Rectangle Productions/TF1 Films ProductionShrunk to Hobbit size and Facetuned into near-oblivion, Lemercier scampers, preens and unnerves. I’ve never seen anything quite like it: Not “PEN15,” not John C. Reilly at the beginning of “Walk Hard,” not even a fully grown Martin Short playing a psychotic 10-year-old in “Clifford.” As a cinematic presence, Preteen Aline looks less like our main character and more like she’s ready to terrorize Vera Farmiga in the next “Conjuring” movie.Why didn’t they just cast an actual kid? I’m told that as a French comedian, Lemercier has often played children, but “Aline” takes this shtick several steps too far: The movie is like “Bohemian Rhapsody” if they shrank Rami Malek and made him play his own teeth. Have you seen those Twitter prompts that ask you to reimagine a classic film with one character replaced by a Muppet? “Aline” reminded me of that, except the main character is the Muppet and instead of felt, she is made from your nightmares.You may be thinking, “Well, surely this insane 5-year-old portion of the movie doesn’t last very long.” You’re right, because the movie does eventually age Aline up … to 12. Here, Lemercier plays Aline as a gawky introvert thrust into fame after she signs with a manager, Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel). The character is based on Dion’s own producer-manager, René Angélil, whom she met as a preteen and eventually married, and Lemercier frames that problematic pairing as Aline’s greatest aspiration in life.Practically speaking, that means we’re watching a 57-year-old play a 12-year-old with a crush on her 40-year-old manager. I just don’t know what to do with any of that! Every time Aline’s mother tries to sever the union, declaring that Guy-Claude is far too old for Aline, I felt like my brain was short-circuiting.Jean-Marie Leroy/Rectangle Productions/TF1 Films ProductionIs Lemercier trying to sanction the romance by playing Aline herself, suggesting that the young woman was simply an old soul? I’m not sure that tracks, since by the time Aline has become an adult (which is when she and Guy-Claude finally consummate their relationship), Lemercier is still playing her as a sugar-loving, childlike diva.Eventually, you just have to surrender to the absurdity of “Aline,” and at least that sense of humor sometimes comes from a knowing place, like when Aline begins her residency in Las Vegas and gets lost in the giant mansion she just bought. After the film’s central romance is resolved in the first hour, “Aline” simply skims Dion’s adult life for stand-alone episodes: She’s picking a dress for the Oscars! She’s taking fertility treatments! Guy-Claude has a ponytail now!But even the film’s more straightforward dramatic scenes are still tinged with a bit of insanity. It almost can’t be helped: After you’ve sat through a half-hour of Preteen Aline, nothing feels normal anymore.And maybe that’s the way “Aline” ought to be. Cultural figures hardly get more mainstream than Celine Dion, but even her biggest fans would admit that the woman exudes pure camp. I can’t explain half of the directorial choices made in “Aline,” but at least they’re so goofy and distinctive that I’ll be thinking about them for years to come. Palme d’Or be damned: In an era where musical biopics are increasingly disposable, I know that “Aline” will go on and on. More