Selena

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Jackie Guerra, Constance Marie, Alex Mennes, Jon Seda, Edward James Olmos, Jacob Vargas
Directed by: Gregory Nava
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, Music
1997

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: Selena (Jennifer Lopez) emerges as a singing sensation as her career explodes and she inspires millions.

Review:

Tim: I've seen Selena twice- once shortly after its release, in the late 1990s, and again about two decades later. My thought on the movie were relatively unchanged with the passing of time. This is a good movie that shines a light on the life of young Selena Quintanilla-Perez. It's entertaining, informative, inspiring, and ultimately, heartbreaking. And yet, while Gregory Nava's film has many strengths, it has some fairly large flaws that blunt its overall impact. Still, this is a good movie.

Jennifer Lopez certainly deserves a great deal of credit for the success of this film. For such an early role for her, she gives a strong performance that captures the youth and zest for life that Selena had. Lopez is indelible in this role. She gives the best performance of the film. It's not surprising that this movie launched her career. She's fun to watch in this role. It's interesting to reflect on some of the similarities between her and the real-life Selena. She was extremely well cast.

I really enjoyed Edward James Olmos as her father. He's such a talented actor and he worked well in this role. It was fun to watch Olmos and Lopez interact together- they have some great scenes. The rest of the cast felt fine- I wouldn't say there were many standouts. I didn't really believe Jon Seda's performance, but he wasn't terrible. Outside of Lopez and Olmos, the rest of the cast felt too generic.

This movie is very much a celebration of Selena's life. The movie came out 2 years after her (SPOILER ALERT) untimely death. It felt like not enough time had passed to really give proper prospective about her influence. The movie was certainly cause for celebration for Selena's grieving fans (some of them, anyway) and the whole film feels like a tribute to her life and success. On the one hand, that works- it's entertaining to see this young woman achieve incredible fame and success. Her rise is empowering and inspiring to girls and I like that it was immortalized in this film. On the other side of the coin is one of my biggest complaints. It feels too one-sided. The movie is more of a celebration less an accurate portrait of her life. The funny thing is, I haven't even done the research on this- it doesn't even matter. Watching this movie, it feels like you're getting a totally biased view of this individual. I'm not saying the movie should have shown the "darker" side or done anything to betray her memory. The issue is that it doesn't feel like we're getting a fair picture of this individual. It feels like the film had an agenda and it was, "Selena was the greatest!" I truly believe the film would have been better had it tried to give a more rounded perspective.

The other big issue I have with the film is the shocking conclusion. I remember being somewhere between 16-18 years old watching this movie and being really confused about the ending. Watching it again at 37, I felt the same thing. The movie doesn't do a good enough job of establishing the supporting characters, especially the one (SPOILER ALERT) who would murder Selena. It feels too rushed, it doesn't make a lot of sense. This ends the movie with an unsatisfactory feeling. The sense of, "Wait, what happened? Why?" You want to understand her untimely death and the movie isn't focused on that. It's all about celebrating Selena, so helping us to understand her death feels unimportant to the movie's objectives. Unfortunately for the film, that's an essential aspect of her story and I wish it wasn't glossed over so quickly. Still, despite these complaints, Selena is a solid movie. It's one that I didn't mind watching again (albeit with considerable distance between viewings). It's an effective musical biopic and a memorable film.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 7



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