‘Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me’ Review: A Star Deals With Mental Health Struggles in a Smart Pop Doc That Avoids Disney Endings

Among the things that become evident over the course of “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me”, one is that he comes across as lovable as you might imagine from his personality in music, television, movies, and philanthropic endeavors. One thing that comes to light immediately after that nondisclosure is that your affection for her isn’t going to make her feel one bit less anxious or depressed, at least when she’s in the throes of the bipolar condition that director Alek Keshishian largely measure focuses on.

It’s far from the first musical document to reveal that you can feel lonely at the top, but it’s one of the few to convey that there are no easy answers for that when mental illness is at the root, as it can be in most music. cases. if not as emphatically as in Gómez’s. Of all the pop superstar performances that have been produced in-house in recent years, “My Mind & Me” is probably the one with the least festive third act… which is something to celebrate. It’s not headed for a pessimistic ending, either, but the fact that the filmmakers don’t try to invent a way to end on a high note sets it apart from the wave of documentaries where minor crises of conscience or even colds are easily resolved. plot points on the way to a big closing show at the stadium.

Most of the heavier drama loads right into the first half hour. Gomez was a fan of Keshishian’s 1991 Madonna documentary “Truth or Dare” and, along with her management team and new label, recruited him to accompany her on her “Revival” tour to film what was presumably conceived. like a movie equally warts and… everything, however ultimately happy-go-lucky piece. In the little footage from that initial filming attempt that makes it into the new movie, the warts turn out to be the size of a grapefruit, figuratively speaking, as Gomez nears the point of a nervous breakdown, or what is later described. in the film as a “psycho break”. At first glance, Gomez’s crying spells may seem like a mixture of exhaustion and unpreparedness, but it seems like the movie is barely getting going when viewers find out that the tour has come to an abrupt halt and that she has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Her lupus, which was diagnosed long ago, is not the least of her problems, but it is less potentially dangerous to her in the short term than her thoughts of self-harm.

When the cameras turn back on around 2019 or 2020, Gomez seems almost the poster child for successful mental health treatment and even somewhat remarkably well-adjusted. With about an hour left in the film, you might be wondering if the rest will turn into the glorified B-roll expansion of more typical music docs, as Gomez first visits her Texas hometown with an ex-classmate for a sweet treat. Serie. of reconnections with the locals, stopping for an endearing encounter with his entire old high school, even a visit to a housebound woman of hers whose dollhouse once offered him succor. A visit to Kenya with representatives from the charity of her choice leads her to sincere aspirations toward more philanthropic work, even as she doubts whether she is a good enough person to deserve doing life-saving work. You could almost call her Serene-a.

And then, unfortunately for Gomez but fortunately for a three-act structure, just about everything that could go wrong in her life does, from her health conditions to what she considered her Prince Charming, that seemingly idyllic charity. There’s no second descent into anything resembling psychosis, but rarely have you seen an on-camera star so transparently fed up with the Hollywood rat race, to the point where she’s openly bored or cranky. in interview situations, it’s not like any of the TV reporters pressing her for quick, terse sound bites seem to notice. This may be insider media bias, but probably the most riveting sequence in the doc is a segment in which Gomez is subjected to a series of quick and banal (to put it mildly) questions and answers that, forget about bipolar conditions, it might be enough to give even a healthy celebrity a psychotic break.

Watching the minutes tick by, a seasoned musical document viewer may wonder how there is ever going to be time for a lengthy second treatment and climactic dance part. Fortunately, Alek Keshishian is in no rush to get to that spot in the final clinch; his subsequent recovery will be a series of subtle adjustments, it is suggested, rather than any white-coated savior or sudden deus-ex-machine sense of redeeming self-esteem. End titles noting some of the public work Gomez has done in recent years to help put mental health curriculum in schools lift the spirits at the end, along with the intuitive feeling that Gomez’s palpable sense of empathy Gómez for the rest will improve. she extend herself as she marches forward.

There are holes in the film, almost all of them deliberate escape routes that don’t take away too much from a narrative that focuses heavily on her mental health and not on career changes or romance. The answer to the question of whether the film will deal with something involving ex-lover Justin Bieber is: not much. They invoke it only as a question repeatedly shouted by the paparazzi, which is probably for the best, though it’s not too prone to gossip to wonder how a breakup that happened during this time period influenced her health. (“Ultimately, it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says, ostensibly of that breakup, and then the movie sheepishly leaves it at that.) a couple of years… or more about her past even further from her as a Disney princess, although maybe the couple of times she goes out says enough. (In the last act, going through a rough patch, Gomez objects to an outfit saying, “It made me feel like Disney. I look like a fucking witch in the outfit doing the wand again.”)

The film doesn’t just avoid the negatives, however: Her entire comeback triumph as an actress with “Only Murders in the Building” goes completely unmentioned, even in the flash-forward ending titles: that’s how anxious the film is not to present too happy an ending. , or simply keeping Gomez’s struggles related to similarly troubled young viewers with fewer golden parachutes.

Gomez comes across as a deeply serious, intentional-minded person, the kind of pop music that could use so much more, but with enough of a dark sense of humor to hear sirens in the distance, when her path becomes clearer near the end. , and joke: “There’s my trip.” Everything about “My Mind & Me” is likely to generate more love, even the hard parts… maybe especially the hard parts, when it’s not just mental health issues that make her act like she’s reached her limit. . The greatest affection of a nation of Selena fans isn’t even remotely what will keep her grounded, but luckily, she didn’t have to lose us to love herself.