I give every movie newly added to the drama section of Hami TV a chance now. Not a big fan of stories about real people, so I expected to watch like 10 minutes of “Aline” and then move on to watch something more gripping, but lo and behold, this flick is actually really nice. There is not much tragedy in Celine Dion’s story, no evil actors, no drugs or affairs. It just makes you think “how can people be so nice?” and restores a bit of hope in humanity. 
Nothing against your enjoyment of the movie, hannes, but in case others, like me, are surprised to see a NYT critic quoted on the poster above as raving, “Instantly legendary. You have not lived until you have seen this. This is … cinema.”
It turns out those were taken from tweets and not a NYT review. And the originals tweets read:
“Still reeling from the instantly legendary decision of 57-year-old ALINE director Valérie Lemercier to play Celine Dion at every age of her life, *including age 12*”
and
“You have not lived until you have seen this 57-year-old actress-director shrink herself down to Hobbjt size to play a pre-teen. This is beyond PEN15, beyond Martin Short in CLIFFORD, this is… cinema”
Totally agree, I randomly picked that poster, not reading what is written on it. The acting, sure. What I probably liked about the film is the story of Celine Dion, her family and her relationship with that old dude. It feels kind of special. Maybe they just left out the ugly parts of her life and character? No idea.
The Long Walk. I was looking forward to it, pretty disappointed. It isn’t quite done yet,
One easy problem to point out is that they totally miscast the lead character. Most of the other casting is OK.
It also didn’t do a good job of building sympathy or suspense, but that would have been harder
I wonder if the cast had better rapport/chemistry off screen?
I probably should have reread the book before putting on the movie
Also, I rented it. Not something I have done much if at all. Just had to scan my fingerprint, maybe a bit too easy…
Maybe because the lead is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son and so there might be a bit of nepotism in the casting there. 
The black best friend (despite my earlier criticism of character types) was okay. I’d give the film a 6.5 out of 10 or so.
As 2025 draws to a close, I think overall this year in film was stronger than 2024. Saw ‘Weapons’ last night. That shit was crazy.
It Ends. Very disappointing. The whole movie is a long drive (I’d rather have a Long Walk, which is more entertaining at least) that’s supposed to be an allegory full of symbols to explore the meaning of life. Didn’t do it for me.
That was in the book. I haven’t read it for some years but a lot of the story and dialogue was taken directly
The plot is familiar, derivative is the wrong word
Yeah, it worked much better in the book
I don’t remember the best friend being black, or the Asian kid. I think that was done to satisfy the wokies. There was a Native American (2 in the book, IIRC)