Celine Dion's unauthorized biopic 'Aline': What you should know about the 'scary' new movie

"Baffling." "Scary." "Downright creepy."

These probably aren't the first words that come to mind when you think of Celine Dion, the beloved superstar responsible for chart-topping power ballads "My Heart Will Go On" and "Because You Loved Me."

But those are just a few of the ways that critics have attempted to describe "Aline" (in select theaters now, opens nationwide Friday), a deeply unusual new movie that pulls freely from Dion's life and uses many of her most recognizable songs.

The film charts the rags-to-riches rise of Aline Dieu (Valérie Lemercier), a singing prodigy from Quebec who is catapulted to fame by a much older music producer, Guy-Claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel). Although the actual subjects' names have all been changed, the plot closely follows the real-life love story of Dion and her late husband and manager, René Angélil, who died of throat cancer in 2016.

"Aline" has polarized audiences since its premiere at Cannes Film Festival in France last summer, and has been denounced by members of Dion's family. Here's everything you need to know about the quirky French-language drama:

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Valérie Lemercier, 58, plays 5-year-old Aline to unsettling effect

Aline is depicted from age 5 through adulthood by Lemercier, 58, a French comedian who also co-wrote and directed the film. Much of the movie's first third centers on Lemercier playing a child and teenage Aline – made to look much smaller with the help of creative camera angles and visual effects, but still with a bizarrely mature face. The off-putting result is akin to a Kristen Wiig "Saturday Night Live" sketch, but the actress insists it was necessary for her to portray Aline at all stages of life to fully chart the character's journey.

“I didn't want to play only the glamorous singer,” Lemercier told Thrillist. “I want to take a part of the growing pains of adolescence, which was my case when I was a small girl and people were laughing about my body, about my nose, about a lot of things.”

If Lemercier had it her way, she would have played an even younger Aline: "My producer asked me to pull out a sequence where I began the movie at 6 months old," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I filmed it," but the scene was cut.

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The movie got rights to some but not all of Celine Dion's songs

Many of Dion's biggest hits, including "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" and "If You Asked Me To," are not included in the film, although Lemercier told Vulture that "The Power of Love" was the only song she wanted that she couldn't get the rights to.

But she still managed to get a number of songs that Dion famously covered, such as "All By Myself" and "River Deep, Mountain High." She even got the rights to "My Heart Will Go On," which Aline amusingly scoffs at before agreeing to record it.

The actress closely studied videos of Dion performing for the film's concert scenes, although she is lip-synching to French artist Victoria Sio, who provides Aline's singing voice. "She was obliged to sound near to Celine, but I wanted to hear her heart," Lemercier told Vulture.

Celine Dion is 'not interested' in seeing the film

Dion herself didn't sign off on the film, although Lemercier sent the script to the pop star's team before production began.

"The first thing I did was to show it to (Dion’s) French manager, who read it very quickly and told me she could see that it wasn’t mocking and that I really liked her," Lemercier told The Guardian. "I needed to know that someone in Céline’s entourage had seen that this film was well-meaning."

To Lemercier's knowledge, Dion has neither seen the film nor does she plan to.

"I contacted Celine Dion’s manager in Quebec who told me that maybe Celine would see it one day but she was not interested in it," she said. "If I was her, I’m not sure I’d be rushing to see it. ... I just want her to know that this film is a tribute."

Not everyone feels it's respectful, though: According to French news site France24, Dion's siblings, Claudette and Michel, condemned "Aline" on the Quebec radio show "La Semaine des 4 Julie" last November, saying they "don't recognize" their family and that several scenes "went too far."

"Aline" may be, by all accounts, a misfire. But as Dion herself sang in "Deadpool 2," beauty can come out of ashes.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Aline': Celine Dion's new biopic is 'downright creepy,' critics say