Irene Taylor’s documentary details the Canadian star’s struggles with Stiff Person Syndrome and appraises the impactful legacy of the singer’s career spanning four decades-plus.

In the world of celebrity documentaries, hagiographies reign supreme. Rare is the film that fulfills its promises of intimacy, vulnerability and never-before-seen perspectives. The films are generally risk-avoidant exercises that have perfected the optical illusion of making subjects seem closer than they actually are. 

In I Am: Celine Dion, the singer demonstrates the extent of her readiness. Directed by Irene Taylor (Leave No Trace, Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements), the film builds on the confessional energy of the Instagram video by inviting fans to bear witness to her struggles with SPS. It is at once a moving tribute to Dion’s legacy, a peek into how this condition has challenged her gifts and an attempt to help the pop star wrestle with what this means for her future.

Answering this question is painful. I Am: Celine Dion begins the year before Dion’s announcement and follows the star through 12 months in which she rarely left her palatial home in Nevada. The film opens with Dion talking about the impact of SPS on her body. She explains muscle stiffening and spasms with the candor of acceptance and her signature humor. But when she opens up about how this affects her singing, how her respiratory muscles constrict her abilities, her voice quivers and her eyes well. A demonstration, in which Dion’s voice cracks and buckles under the strain of a few notes, follows. “I don’t want people to hear that,” the star says, almost whispering. 

This introduction makes immediately clear the degree to which Dion’s life has changed with SPS. No longer can the balladeer fiercely belt the tearful lyrics of her heavyweight discography for hours. She can no longer record three songs in a night or put on performances of a lifetime week after week.

Dion sings in registers that require less work, as demonstrated later when she records a track for the Netflix movie Love Again starring Priyanka Chopra. Taylor and her editors Richard Comeau and J. Christian Jensen stitch together a number of Dion’s session takes to show the effort required for the singer to do what once came so naturally. Through moments like these the director builds an affecting project of contrasts: A portrait of Dion, past and present. 

Taylor intersperses concert footage through this interview, including one from a 2018 tour stop in Sydney where Dion rocked a dramatic gold power suit from her collaboration with Law Roach. Other looks over the years are featured, showing how Dion’s style always seemed at once ahead of its time and of the moment. “I think we created our own magic,” the singer says at one point about her many years of performing. 

The “we” is critical. Throughout I Am: Celine Dion, the Canadian singer expresses profound gratitude for members of her team, from the people who helped stage her tours to the medical professionals, including Dr. Amanda Piquet, helping her manage SPS. There are no interviews with this supporting cast, however. I Am: Celine Dion doesn’t supplement its subject’s testimony with anyone. Instead, like that Instagram video from 2022, it functions as a direct communion between herself and her fans. 

Dion genuinely believes in the power of moving farther together. “I didn’t invent myself, I didn’t create myself,” the Québecoise singer says at one point in the documentary. One wonders if this commitment to teamwork stems from a childhood spent with a big family. Dion was born in Québec to a family of 14 children. According to the singer, her parents worked hard to make sure the kids would never be aware of any suffering. Her mother invented dishes when there was little food in the fridge and Dion counts her siblings as her first audience.