Documentary film “Diane Warren: Relentless” looks over the life and career of Diane Warren, one of the most famous songwriters in our time. As a talented female artist who has gone her way for more than 40 years, she surely has a lot to tell even though she is not so willing to delve into many of her personal matters, and the documentary did a solid job of presenting its human subject with enough care and respect.

After showing Warren starting another workday of hers, the documentary lets her and her several close friends and family members talk about her rather unhappy childhood. While there was a considerable gap between her and her two much older sisters in their family home located in a suburban area of LA, her mother was not exactly a loving one in contrast to her father, who tried to help young Warren as much as possible despite his frequent frustration with her.

As Warren frankly admits in front of the camera, she was quite a troublemaker who was even stuck in a juvenile hall for a while, but she gradually came to pursue her emerging passion toward songwriting, and her father gladly supported her aspiration just for making her stay away from any big trouble. Fortunately, he could introduce her to several local record company producers, and she soon began to show more talent and potential as steadily teaching herself more on what could make a good hit song.   

Of course, Warren had to struggle a lot during next several years, but then she quickly rose as a new talent in the town thanks to her several hit songs during the 1980s including “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, which garnered her first Oscar nomination as used in “Mannequin” (1987). When she later came to realize that she had been stuck in a very unfair contract with her publishing company at that time, she willingly went all the way for gaining her professional independence, and that was how she came to found her own publishing company, where she have been quite free to pursue her artistic passion and inspiration during next several decades.

Warren generously lets director Bess Kargman and her documentary crew into her little private office, which has been strewn with a lot of stuffs including those countless demo recordings of her old and new songs. Just because she prefers to have her own constant work environment (It is suggested that she is on autistic spectrum just like some of talented musicians, by the way), she has actually never had her office get cleaned for many years, and you may be amused a bit when the camera focuses on some glaringly shabby aspects of her office.    

While she does not show much of her creative process, she openly talks about her edgy and persistent personality. As many people who have known her point out, she is always driven by getting things done in her own way, and Cher fondly remembers when Warren tried to persuade her to record one of the latest songs written by Warren. She was not so impressed by Warren’s demo recording (Her singing is rather lousy as shown to us at one point in the documentary, though I must point out that she sings better than I ever can at least), but, once she was eventually persuaded thanks to Warren’s persistence, and she quickly came to see that Warren was right about her song from the very beginning.

And Warren kept creating and producing more and more hit songs during next several years. Thanks to “Because You Loved Me” in “Up Close & Personal” (1996), she received a Grammy award as well as the second Oscar nomination, and then she garnered next three Oscar nominations for “How Do I Live” from “Con Air” (1997), “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from “Armageddon” (1998), and “Music of My Heart” from “Music of the Heart” (1999). In case of “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, it is quite good enough to have occupied a place somewhere in my mind, and that was also the saving grace of that atrociously brainless science fiction action film directed by Michael Bay (Well, what do you expect?).

Since that point, Warren amassed no less than 11 Best Song Oscar nominations to add, but, unlike Grammy or Emmy, winning an Oscar has remained a lifetime goal she still has not achieved yet even at this point. In case of “Til It Happens to You” from documentary “The Hunting Ground”, this exceptional song was inspired by her personal pain and trauma from an incident of sexual abuse during her early years, and it surely meant a lot to her when Lady Gaga, who was sexually abused early in her career, performed the song along with a group of various sexual abuse survivors on the stage during the Academy Awards ceremony in early 2016. While this was undeniably one of the most memorable moments during the ceremony, the award sadly went to “Writing’s on the Wall” from “Spectre” (2015) in the end, which was not a very good James Bond movie theme song to say the least (“Who Can You Trust?” from “The Spy” (2015), which incidentally came out in the very same year, could actually have worked as a better one in my inconsequential opinion).

Anyway, despite her big disappointment at that night, Warren kept going nonetheless. Since she subsequently got nominated again for “Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall” (2017), she received one nomination after another during next 8 years, and she eventually received an Honorary Oscar in 2022 for her impressive career achievement which is still being continued even at this point.  

In fact, “Diane Warren: Relentless” recently received a Best Song Oscar nomination for “Dear Me”, which is introduced later in the documentary as one of Warren’s latest songs. Considering two much more prominent nominees, “I Lied to You” from “Sinners” (2025) and “Golden” from “KPOP Demon Hunters” (2025), the chance is almost zero for Warren to say the least, but I will certainly applaud if she finally comes upon the stage in the next month.