Movies: Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me

Keshishian’s return to moviemaking marks a pivot point for celebrity films

I watched Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me by invitation with an interview afterwards. This 2022 Apple documentary—the Cupertino, California computer company’s making movies to promote its proprietary streaming—screened at American Cinematheque’s Aero theater in Santa Monica. I didn’t know much about the former child and pop artist, though I recalled that she’d had a breakdown after dating another former child and pop artist. The picture’s directed by Alek Keshishian, who directed a Madonna concert tour film in the Nineties. Keshishian, interviewed after the screening, dedicates the film to his late father, Kevork Keshishian.

Gomez is both pathetic and sympathetic. At a young age, the singer and TV actress—she was the leading player on a Disney Channel show as a girl—has experienced lupus, low self-esteem, manic depression (aka bi-polar), high blood pressure and mental health problems. She was suicidal at one point. Keshishian, who once filmed a music video for Gomez and shot this over six…