Selena is a 1997 American biographical musical drama film about Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, played by Jennifer Lopez. The film, written and directed by Gregory Nava, chronicles the star's rise to fame and death when she was murdered by Yolanda Saldívar at the age of 23. In addition to Lopez, the film also stars Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda, Constance Marie, Jacob Vargas, Lupe Ontiveros, and Jackie Guerra in her film debut.
Selena was released in the United States on March 21, 1997, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $35 million worldwide against a production budget of $20 million. For her performance, Jennifer Lopez received a Best Actress nomination at the 55th Golden Globes.
In 2021, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and was re-released in select cinemas on April 7, 2022, to coincide with the film's 25th anniversary.
In 2024, the Pérez Art Museum Miami organized a screening of Selena as part of the institution's Floating Films with Ballyhoo Media. During this event, the film was screened from the water.
Plot
The film opens backstage at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, on February 26, 1995, right before Tejano superstar Selena plays to a sold-out crowd ("Disco Medley").
In 1961, young Abraham Quintanilla and his band "The Dinos" are rejected by a restaurant owner after an audition in Texas. They perform for a Mexican-American nightclub, but a riot ensues when they do not perform the audience's preferred Tejano music, but rather American pop ("Blue Moon").
Twenty years later, Abraham is married to Marcella and living in Lake Jackson, Texas with three children: son A.B., and daughters Suzette and Selena. Discovering Selena's singing talent, Abraham creates the band "Selena y Los Dinos", her as lead singer, A.B. on bass, and Suzette on drums. Initially reluctant, the children enjoy making music ("We Belong Together"). Moving to Corpus Christi, Texas, the band goes on the road to support the family. After lackluster reception at a carnival, Selena begins adding more dance and personality into her act. The band's success grows following local performances. In 1989, Selena reveals her bustier during a carnival performance ("Baila Esta Cumbia"), angering Abraham due to its sexually suggestive nature.
In 1990, Chris Pérez auditions as the guitarist. Abraham disapproves of his heavy metal style but hires him after he agrees to cut his hair. Then Selena and Chris eventually fall in love. In 1992, when Chris' former band members trash a hotel suite, Abraham threatens to fire him. A.B. pleads with him to reconsider, mentioning he is needed for their upcoming tour in Mexico. Promoters worry when they realize Selena does not speak Spanish well, but her personality and care for her fans win everyone over. A show almost goes awry when the huge crowd rushes the stage and it buckles ("La Carcacha"). Selena calms them down with a joyous performance ("Como la Flor") and is accepted as an "artist for the people" in Mexico.
After catching Selena hugging Chris on the tour bus, an apoplectic Abraham fires Chris, leaving Selena heartbroken, and threatens to disband the group if Selena follows him. Eventually, Selena insists that Chris marry her, stating that Abraham will never willingly accept their relationship, and they elope. The day after a radio station announces their marriage, Abraham tells Selena he is proud of her maturity, having realized that he was too harsh on her and Chris. The Quintanillas congratulate them, accept Chris into their family, and rehire him as the guitarist.
In 1994, music executives attend a Selena concert ("Bidi Bidi Bom Bom"/"No Me Queda Más") and offer her the chance to record an English-language album, showing that she has successfully broken-down cultural barriers. Selena opens her first Selena Etc. boutique and asks her fan club president Yolanda Saldívar to manage it. Her live album wins a Grammy for Best Mexican American album, and her staff chip in to get her a celebratory gift. After claiming she knows the perfect gift and suggesting they give her all of the money to buy it, Yolanda gives Selena a ring resembling a Fabergé egg but does not mention it was a group present. Selena begins recording her crossover album ("I Could Fall In Love") and she and Chris plan to start a family together.
One night, Abraham tells Selena fans are upset as they paid to join her fan club but received nothing. Other funds that Yolanda has been handling cannot be accounted for, and vital business records are missing. Confronted by Abraham, Selena, and Suzette, Yolanda denies wrongdoing and says she will find the missing documents. While on the road, Selena talks to her mother about being accepted in the English-speaking market with the upcoming crossover album and tour as well as possibly starting a family ("Dreaming of You"). On March 31, 1995, Selena is fatally shot offscreen by Yolanda, who then ends up in a standoff into the night with police and negotiation units. The Quintanilla-Pérez family mourns Selena's death, while a candlelight vigil is held by her fans.
Cast
- Jennifer Lopez as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (teenage and adult versions)
- Becky Lee Meza as young Selena
- Jennifer Peña as young Selena (singing voice)
- Edward James Olmos as Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
- Panchito Gómez as young Abraham
- Constance Marie as Marcella Samora-Quintanilla
- Jon Seda as Chris Pérez
- Lupe Ontiveros as Yolanda Saldívar
- Jackie Guerra as Suzette Quintanilla
- Victoria Elena Flores as young Suzette
- Jacob Vargas as A.B. Quintanilla III
- Rafael Tamayo as young A.B.
- Alex Meneses as Sara
- John Verea as José Behar
- Ruben Gonzalez as Joe Ojeda
- Seidy López as Debra
- Pete Astudillo as himself, Dinos 1990s
- Ricky Vela as himself, Dinos 1990s
- Don Shelton as himself, Dinos 1990s
- Janice Cruz, Lopez's body double (uncredited)
Production
Development
On March 31, 1995, Selena was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar, a former friend who had managed the singer's Selena Etc. boutiques. Response by the Hispanic community was comparable to the reaction of the assassinations of John Lennon and John F. Kennedy, or the death of Elvis Presley. Newsstands were swarmed by people looking for items concerning Selena. Shortly thereafter, several media projects were in production, including eight unauthorized biographies, six documentaries and two Quintanilla family-unapproved biographical films. This led Abraham to begin working on an authorized biographical material within weeks of her death, a process he found difficult since the family was still mourning. On September 8, 1995, Abraham informed the media his decision to partner with Esparza/Katz Productions and announced the film's budget to be in the range of $15 and $20 million. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Abraham confessed on wanting the duo because they were "in tune with our culture". Casting turnouts reached 10,000 in Los Angeles and 5,000 in Chicago, while turnouts reached 8,000 in San Antonio.
Mexican actress Salma Hayek was invited to test the role of Selena by Esparza. Abraham discovered an actress in Los Angeles and wanted her for the role as Selena, despite her inability to convince the casting crew. Screen testing was described as "grueling" and required "nine minutes of singing and dancing and eight pages of script." After the announcement that Lopez would portray Selena, news media and fans criticized Abraham for choosing Lopez, a New York City native born to Puerto Rican parents, to play a Texan of Mexican descent.
The Mexican media disapproved of the film and were outraged that Lopez was chosen for the title role. Lopez received backlash from the media and fans because she was not a Mexican American. The Hispanic community began protesting for a recast. During pre-production, Lopez stated: "I know a few people were protesting, but in Corpus [Selena's hometown] everyone has been really supportive". Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly noted that "nothing could have prepared [Lopez] for the hype attached to her million-dollar salary." After Lopez landed the role, she decided to stay with Suzette Quintanilla, Selena's sister, at her home to study her character in the recordings and footage the family shared with her. Selena's singing voice was dubbed onto Lopez's performance.
The hospital scene set after Selena's death was shot once, making everyone present emotional. Guerra said how she was physically and emotionally drained after the filming the scene. She explained how she "could not imagine what's it like to be [the Quintanilla family]" and further said how she had to live with the pain for four months and found the pain the family goes through unimaginable. The soundtrack is a compilation of Selena's music, three of which are medleys of Selena's live recording remixed for the film, as well as tracks included in the film and tribute songs from various artists. The only songs featured on the soundtrack that were not in the film were "Is it the Beat," "Only Love" and "A Boy Like That," and Selena tributes sung by other artists. The only recordings heard in the film were the "Cumbia Medley," "Disco Medley" and "Where Did the Feeling Go?", which was played in the last half of the film's closing credits. The Vidal Brothers' "Oldies Medley" was also in the film. All the other songs, including rare tracks, hits and cuts like the "Disco Medley, Part II" (which was recorded live during Selena's 1995 concert at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo), were live recordings of Selena in concerts.
Release
Box office
Selena opened March 21, 1997 and earned $11.6 million on its opening weekend. On its second weekend, the film earned $6.2 million. The following weekend, it earned $6.1 million. The film grossed $35.5 million domestically during its theatrical run. Selena was re-released in theaters on April 7, 2022, by Iconic Distribution, to mark twenty five years of the classic film.
Reception
Critical response
Selena received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 66% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 85 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. The critics’ consensus reads, "Selena occasionally struggles to tell its subject's story with depth or perspective, but those flaws are rendered largely irrelevant by Jennifer Lopez in the title role." At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 67 based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was impressed by the acting, and gave Selena three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Young Selena is played by Becky Lee Meza, who has a big smile and a lot of energy. The teenage and adult Selena is played by Lopez in a star-making performance. After her strong work as the passionate lover of Jack Nicholson in the current Blood and Wine, here she creates a completely different performance, as a loyal Quintanilla who does most of her growing up on a tour bus with her dad at the wheel." Entertainment Weekly believed Lopez perfected Selena's accent while "studying performance footage of the pop sensation" according to Nava. Lopez said "you need to do your homework on this gig" because Selena was "fresh in the public's mind".
Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan gave the film a mixed review. He wrote the film is part of a "completely predictable Latino soap opera." However, he added that "there are chunks of Selena that only a stone could resist. This movie turns out to be a celebration not only of the singer but also (as "What's Love" was for Angela Bassett) of the actress who plays her, Jennifer Lopez." Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four; while he praised Lopez and Olmos, he called the film a "glossy, congenially corny biography. "Ironically," Maltin wrote, "the film does more to solidify Selena's celebrity than she was able to accomplish in her short lifetime."
Some critics, however, did not like how the film appeared to be a sanitized Selena portrait. Critic Walter Addiego considers Nava's work a worshipful biography of her. Addiego, writing for the San Francisco Examiner, did have a few enjoyable moments viewing the film but wrote, "You can't help cheering for Selena, but the good feeling is diminished by the sense that her story's been simplified and sanitized."
Accolades
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
! scope="col"| Award
! scope="col"| Date
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Recipient(s)
! scope="col"| Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Ref.
|-
| rowspan="6"| ALMA Awards
| rowspan="6"| June 4, 1998
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Feature Film
|
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film
| Edward James Olmos
|
|-
| Jon Seda
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film
| Jackie Guerra
|
|-
| Jennifer Lopez
|
|-
| Outstanding Latino Director of a Feature Film
| Gregory Nava
|
|-
| Golden Globe Awards
| January 18, 1998
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
| Jennifer Lopez
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Grammy Awards
| February 25, 1998
| Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television
| Dave Grusin
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Imagen Awards
| rowspan="2"| April 1, 1998
| colspan="2"| Best Theatrical Feature Film
|
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Lasting Image Award
| rowspan="2"| Jennifer Lopez
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Lone Star Film & Television Awards
| rowspan="2"| 1998
| Best Actress
|
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Edward James Olmos
|
|-
| MTV Movie Awards
| May 30, 1998
| Best Breakthrough Performance
| Jennifer Lopez
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Young Artist Awards
| March 14, 1998
| Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress
| Rebecca Lee Meza
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|}
Legacy and recent history
In Latin Sensations (2001), Herón Márquez noted that the film's success "introduced English-speaking America to Selena's music, made Jennifer Lopez a bona fide star, and awakened Corporate America to the enormous and growing presence—and buying power—of Latinos in the United States."
On January 1, 2021, all 38 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus signed a letter addressed to the Library of Congress "formally nominating" Selena to be added to the National Film Registry. The lobbying effort aimed at Carla Hayden was led by Representative Joaquin Castro (D–TX), chairman of the caucus, and framed the act as a way to, among other things, more broadly recognize Latino contributions to film, increase acclaim of Latino cinema and effect broader cinematic representation. On December 14, 2021, the film was officially selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Selena: The Series is a biographical television series about the late singer Selena Quintanilla. The series comes 23 years after its original film and premiered on Netflix on December 4, 2020.