DIANE WARREN: RELENTLESS – Review by Cortland Jacoby

There are two things you can guarantee when you watch the Oscars. 1. That it will be an annual event. 2. That songwriter Diane Warren will be nominated for Best Song. At the last 10 Oscar ceremonies, she’s been nominated at nine of them. I have literally heard a critic describe her chase for Oscar gold as “relentless,” so it makes sense that the inevitable documentary about the brilliant music mind should be titled as such.

In Diane Warren: Relentless, filmmaker Bess Kargman offers an intimate look into Warren’s life and her endearing yet brash personality. From her California upbringing with a supportive father and a detached and abrasive mother to her storied career, Kargman captures Warren’s past by interviewing her contemporaries, lifelong friends, her niece, and the stars she’s worked with. Her hits like If I Could Turn Back Time and Un-Break My Heart are examined with the musicians that made them legendary (Yes, Cher and Toni Braxton pop in for interviews).

In 90 minutes, just about every documentary technique is employed: talking head interviews, song samples, archival footage, reenactments, and live cinematography. We visit her old home, head to her office, and meet the scene-stealing Mouse, her beloved big-eared cat.

Warren tells us jokes about her rough relationship with her mother and how cutthroat and exploitative the business was in the early 80s. Her sardonic sense of humor is fully on display and as one friend put it, clearly a defense mechanism. From her clear and valid rejection sensitivity to revealing her Aspbergers diagnosis (sic), we see someone who is determined to succeed and who falls into the pitfalls of Hollywood. It’s clear that some of the stars and producers she works with write off Warren’s quirks as the awkward side of genius without fully understanding why she is the way she is. It’s an aspect of the film that should have been explored a bit more.

With its shifting tone and scattered format in the film’s final act, Kargman didn’t know how to approach this story. Is it about Warren chasing that elusive Oscar? Is it about how she craves approval from others because her mother never offered it freely? Is it about how her autism diagnosis affects her work?

Kargman doesn’t string these themes and ideas together cohesively enough and jumps around towards the end. It leaves you wanting more about the songwriter’s actual work as only a handful of songs are examined fully. Warren has enough personality to turn the documentary into a crowd-pleaser, but you still wonder if there is a more effective way to tell her story.