"As soon as you depend on someone, you lose something". A true sentence chosen to open the documentary about country-pop singer Shania Twain. Strongly it goes on, "above all you lose the right to decide". With Twain, this applies to both professional career and love, but more on that later.
The Canadian was drilled by her mother into making music at an early age. When she recognized her singing talent, she regularly dragged the young Shania to bars at night so that she could sing there and draw attention to herself. She grew up in a violent household, according to Twain in the Netflix production. Shania Twain locked herself in her room and practiced her singing and wanted to use the music to save everyone in her family. But she didn't succeed, her parents died in a car accident when Shania Twain was 22 years old. From then on she was responsible for looking after her younger siblings. She quickly found that singing made her more money than a normal job. But the road was hard and required a lot of discipline. She kept the family afloat with a show engagement at the Deerhurst resort.
Over time, she found a friend and manager in Mary Bailey who would help her achieve her musical goals for decades. Twain describes how difficult it was for her to break into the county music scene at the time. "Shania Twain may not have feminist on her hat, she just did," the documentary said. With a lot of ambition she developed a world career. But there were severe setbacks in her private life.
She got to the music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who played a key role in her success and there were also private sparks between the two. They married in 1993 and had a son together in 2001. But in 2010 the marriage broke up, the singer had to make one of the worst experiences in a relationship. Her husband was unfaithful with her best friend. She found this out at a time in her life when her health was very poor.
She had recently contracted Lyme disease from a tick bite and suffered from dizziness, blackouts and even loss of her voice. From then on her breathing was different and she had to learn to sing again. However, she does not describe the illness as the worst low point of her life, but the double betrayal of her by two people who meant more to her than anything. "It was a whole new low, and then I didn't even see any point in my music career." For her, this part of her life again felt like someone had died. "How am I supposed to get over this?", were her thoughts at the time.
She lost pretty much everything in one moment of her life and says today "that she had to find herself all over again as an individual". Going back into the studio, writing and producing songs, everything without her former music producer husband cost the singer a lot of strength. But she found her way back and herself again. In 2017, the 56-year-old released her album "Now" and now she takes her fans on Netflix on a journey through her life. A very entertaining and inspiring story of a world star who, like many other people, was given little and who was able to build a great career with hard work.
