Selma Blair holds no illusions about her place in Hollywood. Whether it’s “Cruel Intentions,” “Legally Blonde,” or “Hellboy,” she’s best known standing beside, or rather behind, her more famous counterparts. “I was always very conscious that I was a supporting actress,” she explains in “Introducing, Selma Blair.” “Everything I did on set was to support the star.”
Here, Blair gets top billing. “I always thought I was on a reality show, like I was in a documentary, but only god would see it — and disapprove,” she says early on in the film. Though we don’t get omniscient access to Blair’s life, we get pretty damn close. Director Rachel Fleit is entrusted to film the actress’ most personal, and achingly vulnerable, moments as she reckons with her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis and decides to pursue a stem cell transplant.
At one point Blair’s comfort dog jumps off her lap, and her speech changes instantly and dramatically. She struggles to communicate, citing fatigue and discomfort in her companion’s absence. “This is what happens that I don’t want people to see,” she manages to get out. This occurs prior the doc’s title sequence. We’re less than 10 minutes in, and already we’re seeing a side of Blair that she’s reluctant to show. Never one to lose her sense of humor, she says, “I’ve got to laugh. Look at how I’m dressed.” She’s roleplaying “Sunset Boulevard’s” Norma Desmond.
That comedic energy brings welcome levity to “Introducing, Selma Blair,” a doc that contends with some majorly heavy material, including, as you’d expect, mortality, disability, and beauty standards. But it also touches on Blair’s deeply complicated relationship with her own mother, who reacted to seeing her daughter’s Seventeen Magazine cover by saying she looked “so unimportant.” “I thought only my suffering could please her,” Blair observes.
The “Sweetest Thing” actress’ mother always told her that she wasn’t meant to be a mother, a fate that Blair didn’t accept. Her son, Arthur, features prominently in “Introducing, Selma Blair.” In one of the documentary’s most touching moments, Blair invites Arthur to cut her hair after he admits he’s scared of seeing it fall out after treatment. She offers him the scissors, giving him the chance to take matters into his own hands, so it “won’t be so scary.”
“Introducing, Selma Blair” sees its star pulling back the curtain on her experiences with a chronic illness and offering a no-holds-barred look into her most challenging and intimate moments, a decision that will be seen as brave by many. Blair balks at the word. She says she’s just walking and talking — and this happens to be how she walks and talks.
An unvarnished tribute to an actress, mother, daughter, sister, and friend during a time of inner and outer transformation, the film finally puts Blair front and center, and what a captivating leading lady she turns out to be.
“Introducing, Selma Blair” is now screening in select theaters. It starts streaming on discovery+ October 21.
