Deeply intimate and heartbreaking, Selena Gomez’s new documentary ‘My Mind & Me’ is an incredibly complex portrait of Gomez attempting to understand how her mind works with pure honesty.
In collaboration with director Alex Keshishian, Gomez vulnerably invites us to witness her darkest but formative times in the span of six years as she struggles with mental illness, lupus, fame, and refinding self-love.
Earlier in the documentary, we see Gomez crying backstage during her Revival tour in 2016. “When am I just gonna be enough by myself?” asks Gomez as she breaks down in front of her friends and feels like a failure, constantly getting defined by her past. She finds herself trapped in a loop of self-loathing– harshly criticizing her body, outfits, and performance.
In the film, Gomez isn’t the only one spreading awareness about mental health. While in Kenya, she has a conversation with a young woman, who also struggled with mental health but eventually found a way to heal and help others. While Gomez feels inspired by this young woman, the audience also feels like a part of this safe sharing space.
In a contrasting scene – where Gomez doesn’t feel as peaceful as in Kenya– an interviewer asks the artist about her future career plans. Gomez answers genuinely and says she wants to dedicate her life to philanthropy. In return, the interviewer– without acknowledging her answer– replies with, “Ok, that’s good enough for me”. Gomez is visibly upset after this interaction and finds herself feeling like “a product”.
The 95 minutes-long emotional rollercoaster ends with a hopeful and self-aware monologue of Selena saying, “I’m happy, I’m at peace, I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m confident, I’m full of doubt, I’m a work in progress, I am enough, I am Selena”.
Gomez also released a new original song, ‘‘My Mind & Me’’, accompanying the release of the film. With lyrics like, “If somеbody sees me like this, then thеy won’t feel alone now/ My mind and me”, she once again makes the sole purpose of this personal documentary clear. In sharing her darkest secrets through this film, Gomez not only heals herself, but also helps others who relate to her raw truth about mental health.