As Oscar weekend approaches, what higher time to absorb Céline Dion’s massive display screen debut in Love Once more…?
“Sit up man, you’re with Céline Dion”
To know me is to know that I’m unironically a giant fan of Céline Marie Claudette Dion however I’ve to say that even I baulked momentarily on the prospect of Love Once more, a 2023 rom-com that includes a (barely) fictionalised model of Ms Dion in her massive display screen debut. Because it seems, different folks (Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan) are doing the rom and Céline truly brings a good quantity of the com, which isn’t an excessive amount of of a shock contemplating how in on the joke she has lengthy been in regards to the extravagance of her public persona.
Written and directed by James C. Strouse as an English-language remake of the 2016 German movie SMS für Dich, in flip primarily based on a novel by Sofie Cramer, it’s definitely a peculiar beast. Mira is a kids’s writer whose boyfriend is killed inside moments of the movie beginning; Rob is a music critic lately dumped not-quite-at-the altar; and since this can be a rom-com, he finally ends up with the lifeless boyf’s cell when it’s recycled into his new work cellphone. She continues to textual content her lover to assist together with her grief, he reads them and tracks her down, will they recover from the ickiness and find yourself along with the assistance of Céline? What do you suppose?!
Chopra Jonas and Heughan handle to generate nearly sufficient chemistry to get their eventual meet-cute going and burbling by means of the hammy obstacles the film places in place for them. The actual pleasure although is within the scenes with Céline (who Rob is contracted to interview previous to her first tour for the reason that dying of her beloved Réné) which, on account of Covid/megastar-protocols, she filmed with out assembly any of her co-stars. This implies ‘eyeline actors’ are talked about within the credit which is fabulous however to Strouse’s credit score, it isn’t vastly apparent (I don’t suppose?).
As a personality, Céline is as earnest and entertaining as she is in actual life, a neat means with a quip (“OK Mr Underwear”) or a non sequitur (“I don’t actually care when you and Rob get collectively”) means she’s truly fairly humorous. And elsewhere, the movie sparkles when it embraces this sense of enjoyable – Mira’s first dip again into the courting pool is with a buffed-up bro performed by Chopra Jonas’ precise husband Nick Jonas, Heughan is all of us singing alongside to ‘It’s All Coming Again To Me Now’ (though considerably extra ripped than most), Sofia Barclay’s relentless vitality as Mira’s youthful sister and cheerleader Suzy.
The perfunctory means that the numerous, many textual content messages are proven onscreen do lack creativeness and inspiration although, stifling any try and construct a stream all through. There’s a bizarrely British focus to the supporting solid too (Russell Tovey, Celia Imrie, Lydia West, Omid Djalil, Arinzé Kene) most of whom have actually fairly shonky US accents that consistently perplex and distract of their scenes. However weirdly, it simply doesn’t actually matter as a result of this fever dream of a movie exists past this type of criticism – it’s certainly destined to go on….
