Shania doesn’t sing
Unauthorized bio misses the real story
The most obvious flaws in the new CBC biopic, Shania: A Life in Eight Albums
( tonight at 8) are contained within the title.
For one thing, they are not real albums; they are chapter headings disguised as mock-up album covers, an awkward conceit undermined by the fact that portions of the life they attempt to describe are not up to such intense and intimate scrutiny. But then, this is not, strictly speaking, the life of “ Shania” at all. The unauthorized TV biography tracks the tortuous rise of a precocious young singer and aspiring songwriter named Eileen ( or “ Elly” and, briefly, Sofia) Twain — she does not in fact even consider the switch to Shania ( borrowed backstage from a costume seamstress) until the film’s next- to- final act. And it ends just one phone call shy of the quintessential happy ending: the voice on the other end belonging to future producer and husband Mutt Lang. Of course, Eileen: A Life in Search of a Recording Contract does not have quite the same ring. Nor, for that matter, does A Life with Eight Men
— if anything, as depicted here, the various phases of Twain’s formative years are defined by whoever the nascent superstar happened to be sleeping with at the time. Now, these are admittedly fairly flippant observations, but they are close as I can come to explain why Shania is such a disappointment. What is it about this textbook rags-to-sequins story that defied even the celebrated skills of director Jerry Ciccoritti ( the brilliant original Trudeau bio) and veteran series scribe Shelley Eriksen ( Traders, Cold Squad)? The young Twain’s early life was anything but uneventful and would certainly seem to have all the requirements of compelling biographical drama: the dirt- poor rural Ontario upbringing, the obsessive stage mom in a mixed- race marriage, the ambitious young talent aching to be taken seriously . . . The rebellious digression into ’80s headband pop, the false starts in Nashville, the first bad reviews in Toronto, the frustrating years as a back- row chorine at a northern resort . . . And then, of course, the lifeshattering family tragedy that brought her back home to regroup and re- embrace her roots. And yet, only 24 hours after screening Shania, the only thing that really sticks in my mind is the endless succession of really bad wigs.
That, and the nuanced performance of former moppet Megan Follows as Twain’s loving, if troubled, mom, who does not get nearly enough time on screen — herein lies a TV movie unto itself, at least as viable as the Walter Gretzky bio that ran in the same CBC time slot last night. But then, this is Shania’s story, or rather, Eileen’s.
I am anything but a fan, and could not name more than a couple Twain hits — but then, presumably because it is unauthorized, neither can A Life in Eight Albums. Instead, we must endure endless reprises of country classics like Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Of the three young actresses who portray her throughout her early life, the most evocatively Shania- like, at least to my untrained eye and ear, is the teenaged Shenae Grimes, sandwiched between the perky, precocious 8- year-old Reva Timbers and the 21- year- old Meredith Henderson, who I found myself unable to separate from her 13- year- old incarnation as TV’s sleuthing Shirley Holmes. To their shared credit, and that of pre- eminent local vocal coach Elaine Overholt, all three girls do all their own singing, something even the real Shania herself would likely find a daunting challenge.