Grounded despite his superstardom
Documentary a deep dive into singer’s fame.
Shawn Mendes: In Wonder
★★★ 1/2 (out of 4) Documentary about Shawn Mendes and his 2019 world tour. Directed by Grant Singer. Available on Netflix
With live performances in a state of flux, music documentaries have been one way to fill the void during this seemingly endless period of isolation.
There are a couple of ways they can be filmed. There’s the tried and true method of the aging band or artist looking back at their legacy, sometimes with regret at what could have been. Then there is the more opportunistic “strike while the iron is hot” tone, cashing in on today’s flavour before the artist is summarily dismissed like yesterday’s news for someone younger and gimmickier. “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder,” now streaming globally on Netflix, has more than enough substance to not be lumped in with the latter.
Yes, the documentary’s subject is still wet behind the ears, with a lot to learn about an industry he is poised to dominate for longer than a cup of Americano. Mendes, the affable Canadian-next-door with the Elvis good looks, overflowing talent and syrupy maple voice just turned 22.
In the blink-of-an-eye time frame since he started recording Vine videos in his Pickering bedroom when it was a thing and gave a packed high school performance at 15, Mendes has released three studio albums of increasing maturity, hit No. 1 worldwide by dueting with girl
friend Camila Cabello on “Senorita,” and headlined a $100million-grossing tour that included selling out Toronto’s 50,000-capacity Rogers Centre.
Speaking of the Havana “ooh na-na-na”-born Cabello, there wasn’t as much of her featured in the doc as I thought there would be, given the Gen-Z power couple’s high-profile relationship (“the f---ing saga,” as she expletively calls it). For all his well-earned superstardom, Mendes remains grounded; chilling with family and waxing nostalgic about climbing hydro towers in his hometown are what’s important to him as he concurrently basks in love, ranging from young female fans to his Portuguese “avo.”
His trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable; if that isn’t worth your own documentary, I’m not sure what is. When you and the manager who discovered you (Andrew Gertler) are co-executive producers,
however, you risk opening yourselves up to self-serving accusations. While this is clearly part of the phased promotional cycle for Mendes’s fourth album, “Wonder” — out Dec. 4 — the singer comes off as genuine and humbled by the opportunities he’s been afforded, repeating at opposite ends of the documentary how, “I’m just a guy who really loves music.”
Mendes confesses to the camera that this isn’t the most profound statement, but the autobiopic is quite the deep dive recapping how he gave it his all over more than 100 concerts in 30-plus countries.
There is palpable drama in how director Grant Singer captured the tough decision Mendes’ team had to make in cancelling a show in Sao Paulo, Brazil, due to laryngitis and a sinus infection. Known previously for music videos, Singer uses a variant of the in media res technique for his first feature
film; Mendes is shown typing notes into his phone rather than speaking early on and viewers who may not have known how the tour could have ended on a very sour note are filled in later.
The biggest criticism I can muster for “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder” is it seems to exist in a vacuum, one that doesn’t acknowledge that the worst pandemic in a hundred years has been going on for the past eight months. We are meant to watch, get excited for the album less than two weeks later and then start prepping for the even-better-than-the-last tour. Whether that actually happens in 2021 isn’t up to Mendes, unfortunately.
“I’m really excited to sing these songs on tour. All this stuff is so playable, in the best way,” he says. The snippets we get to overhear scattered throughout certainly lend credence to this. Mendes wants to
make sure his audience knows how involved he was in the creation of “Wonder,” from song germinations in his Tesla to final grandiose production touches. Pure, unbridled love for what he gets to do supersedes any sense of ego.
As intense as 2019 was for him, Mendes is determined to do it all over again for as long as he can (giving himself a shelf life of 10 years at one point in the doc). Even the staunchest pop hater can’t help but be impressed at the spectacle Mendes puts on for his loyal troops.
We may need to come up with another term besides “FOMO” to describe the sentiment his fans must be feeling, along with him, wanting to relive the euphoric experience their music hero is chasing as desperately. “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder” partially satiates that need but, like equally great entertainers have since the P.T. Barnum days, leaves ’em wanting more.