“I Am: Celine Dion” Review: You’ve Seen the Best of Me

Disease shows no respect even for pop music’s most revered figures

In “I Am: Celine Dion,” a documentary about the global singer on Amazon Prime Video, it quickly becomes clear that Dion can’t even move her body, let alone sing a soulful ballad with all the strength she has, since she was a teenager, has raked in millions. The film, from director Irene Taylor, records the singer’s painful reality as she battles the rare neurological condition called Stiff Person Syndrome.

In a December 2022 Instagram post, Dion tearfully revealed her diagnosis to fans, but by then the documentary was already in production. Taylor opens the film with relaxed scenes of Dion at her Las Vegas home with her children and her staff. Then the part that is painful to watch: you hear the singer moaning while she has a seizure on the floor. Discovering early on that she had always wanted to sing “my whole life” intensifies the tragedy of watching Dion, now 56, struggle to continue living that dream. Dion’s voice made her a star; this film is eager to make her a person.

But there’s nothing subtle about Taylor’s edits, like a high-energy cut from the past performance with subdued domestic energy on display as Dion vacuums the couch. One shot pans to his eerily empty living room, a stark departure from playing to packed stadiums. Even the soundtrack sucks. All this palpable sadness is, perhaps, why Taylor inserts clips of Dion in better times.

I understand the tendency not to define Dion by her diagnosis. But Dion’s spontaneously expressive personality shines through in her pain in raw footage that seems more connected to her recovery journey, like when her physical therapist badgers her about a cream she didn’t apply to her feet. “Give me a break,” she says with playful exasperation.

Then he sings “Gimme a Break,” the Kit Kat commercial jingle. As that welcome touch of humor draws you into this intimately told story, what’s more Celine than an ad-libbed voice? unremarkable she-clips take you out of her: Sia’s impersonation of her on a late-night talk show; a part of her from the “Ashes” video that lets Deadpool’s cameo last too long; her career-defining ballad “My Heart Will Go On” but, strangely, the version “Carpool Karaoke” with James Corden.

These awkward segments undermine the powerful emotional tone of Dion’s testimony that transcends her circumstances. Especially when she lets the cameras roam, showing some of the darkest health-related scenes I’ve ever seen from an on-screen superstar.

“I think I’ve been really good,” Dion says of her career. After seeing a sequined costume of hers hanging in her house, her “era” is extremely honest. But when she sings during a studio session, she still does it. AND Very good. A final shot shows her as a starry-eyed teenager staring at the stage lights. It’s as if her younger self has something to say after all these years: that, if not now, it might all come back to her soon.