She has just canceled her concerts until spring 2024, for health reasons. Failing to be fit enough to go on stage, Celine Dion is the heroine of a romantic comedy, of which she also signs for the soundtrack five unreleased titles. A small consolation prize for his fans. The Quebecer even steals the show from the lovebirds, whose idyll, sewn with white thread, leaves the hearts of the spectators in a flat encephalogram. Remake of a hit German comedy, Love Again: a little, a lot, passionately sank, like the Titanic, to the bottom of the American box office. It had been shot between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 in London. Long before the singer reveals to be suffering from chronic and painful stiffness. A rare neurological disease that forced her to cancel her tour.
The interpreter of My Heart Will Go On plays himself with surprising self-mockery. And finds herself, in spite of herself, playing matchmaker between a jaded journalist and a bereaved illustrator. Mira (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas from the Citadel series) lost her fiancé in a traffic accident. Inconsolable, she continues to send text messages to the deceased’s mobile detailing his feelings. She does not know that the number has been reassigned to Rob, music critic (Sam Heughan, the handsome boy from Outlander, rather charismatic except here). The Scotsman who went into exile in New York, abandoned at the altar by his fiancée, is in the middle of professional purgatory. His editor commissioned a portrait of Celine Dion from him. An outrage for anyone who swears by alternative rock. Rob believes that the interpreter of For you to love me again is shameless and misleading propaganda of love and love at first sight.
However, Rob is not insensitive to the dismay that emanates from Mira’s messages. Rob takes it into his head to meet this correspondent. And finds an unexpected ally in Celine Dion who exalts her over their interviews to open her heart. Half-life coach, half-psychologist, the singer gives her a master class on love based on her discography and her great history with René Angélil.
Celine Dion recounts her first kiss, the pain of mourning with great sincerity. Above all, she has fun with her diva image. Able to sharply reframe a journalist who questions her on the relevance of her work, she replies: “What a funny question. You wonder why your readers continue to browse the articles of a white 50-year-old. If your work crosses the ages , is that it is timeless”.
Towards Rob, she proves to be a strict teacher. Black suit. Severe bun. She sips her tea on the carpet with her “student”. These moments of improbable and deliciously meta complicity constitute the best moments of the bluette of James Strouse. With the appearance of Priyanka Chopra-Jonas’ real husband: singer Nick Jonas is on an overly insistent bad date.
At the risk of disappointing apprentice journalists, no press briefing, timed to the nearest second, ever turns into a cuddle therapy session where the star comforts you. And even less after being rebuffed at a press conference for not having cut off his phone.
It’s less disbelief than boredom that Mira and Rob’s adventures arouse. Rather than admitting to her that he receives the text messages intended for his fiancé, he makes her believe in the powers of divine chance. Secretiveness which will be reproached to him thereafter. From love at first sight too quickly to breaking up on a misunderstanding… Everything is predictable and lacks twists or misunderstandings.
The soundtrack remains to awaken the viewer from its marshmallow torpor. Compilation of Celine Dion’s hits supplemented by five new compositions. In Love Again, the tutelary title, the strings and the piano carve out the lion’s share, supported by a choir in an acoustic philosophy. The rest is more pop. The stamp of the artist is more doctored there. The vocal power of the Quebecer remains intact, however. Fans will recognize themselves. A less discerning ear may judge that these ballads form an indistinguishable tunnel of exhortations to love. Not sure that in this quintet is a new classic from the artist’s repertoire.
For her debut on the big screen, Celine Dion deserved better than this film between the feature film that we launch on the plane and the Christmas TV movie. What to regret the fantasy and the freshness of the fake biopic dedicated to him by Valerie Lemercier with Aline.
