There’s a sense throughout Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, a new documentary on Apple TV+, of a shadow self, the ghosts of different films that could’ve been. The bulk of the film’s first 15 minutes takes place in 2016, as a strikingly younger Gomez – she was 23 then, 30 now – prepares for the world tour in support of her 2015 album Revival, the project meant to refashion her image from Disney star to single adult sexual being.
The footage has all the hallmarks of a tour documentary – a relaxed, more profane version of Gomez in costume fittings and tour rehearsals; a moment in which she cracks from the pressure, panicking through tears to friends and crew that nothing is good enough; a montage of cities and stages and poses and cheers and crying, overwhelmed fans. And then, cut. The Revival tour was cancelled after 55 performances, as Gomez entered a psychiatric facility. Talking heads who don’t appear for the rest of the film attest to the absolute hell Gomez was in.
