As "Shania Twain: Not Just a Girl" (2022 release; 88 min) opens, various talking heads are heaping praise on Twain. "She was a trailblazer across musical styles", comments one (correctly). We then go back in time to "Timmins, Ontario" where Shania grew up and at a young age (just 8) started performing in bars... At this point we are 10 min into the movie.
Couple of comments: this bio-documentary is directed by Joss Crowley, who has done a number of other music documentaries (involving Elvis Costello, Hall & Oates, and others). Here he looks back at the amazing rise of Shania Twain, who out of nowhere (and after a failed 1993 debut album) then released 3 albums in a row that each went diamond (more than 10 million copies sold): The Woman In Me (1995), Come On Over (1997) and Up! (2002), and then pretty much disappeared into thin air for the next decade plus. This documentary is completely straight forward and strictly by the numbers. Twain's musical and personal partnership with Mutt Lange, coincidentally or not starting with The Woman In Me, is of course mentioned but otherwise not reviewed in depth or otherwise questioned (Lange was 17 years her senior). Also not clear is why exactly Twain decided to move to Nashville in the early 90s. Bottom line: this bio-documentary is entirely free from any controversy, and as it happens also (or perhaps more accurately, hence) lacks much new insight as to the phenom that Shania Twain was. I saw Twain in concert just once, when she came to Cincinnati on her Up! Tour in 2004. The arena was sold out, and she put on a thoroughly professional "well oiled machine" performance.
"Shania Twain: Not Just A Girl" recently premiered on Netflix, and I just watched it the other night. If you are a fan of Shania Twain, be it a die-hard or, like me, just a casual fan, I'd readily suggest you check out this documentary, albeit with expectations in check, and draw your own conclusion.
