South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival – In August of 2018, actress Selma Blair was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In October of 2018 she took to social media, and told the world about her disease. With humor, and levity, she shared her plight – the realization that years of minor goof ups and weird “oops” moments were all leading up to this moment – a lifelong illness. A life changing series of words. “You have multiple sclerosis.”

Introducing, Selma Blair follows Blair through a year packed with treatments, highs, lows, falls, and triumphs. When Blair decides to begin stem cell treatments, in hopes of retraining her immune system and in a way undoing her disease, she has no idea the journey that awaits her. While day to day life with MS can be excruciating and unpredictable, the treatment is worse – more taxing, more hopeless – and unbelievably isolating. Her son Arthur goes to live with his father. She’s put in isolation, first at the Ritz-Carlton, then in the hospital itself. She has 19 days of hospitalization where her immune system is dropped down to approximately 1% of its functionality. Like the old saying used for chemotherapy (which is also part of Blair’s course of treatment), they kill her to bring her back. And it’s a journey even the bravest of us would balk at. Introducing, Selma Blair is an honest portrait of a woman on the brink.

Blair’s unending humor, and laughter through tears, is the strong beating heart of Introducing, Selma Blair even as she sobs through treatments, and says preemptive goodbyes before going off to Chicago for her stem cells. She digs into her relationship with her mother – a woman who “tethered a darkness” to Blair, filled her with self hatred and a generational rage that bubbles constantly beneath the surface. Her damaged, unwell mother, who Blair says she understands like no one else can. The juxtaposition of their complicated relationship is just another perfect example of Blair’s lifetime of complications. With love and laughter, she takes it in stride, jokingly doing a comedic bit “for her sisters” of her mom’s near abusive behavior, reflecting with her sister on some of the stranger, more strained moments of their childhood, and as her sister jokingly refers to them “family secrets”.

This is where the review gets personal – a place I rarely go with my writing, but I feel I’d be doing myself and Blair a disservice by not acknowledging the vast importance of this film. I myself live with a slew of chronic illnesses. I, like Blair, am impacted by stimulus, by the world around me, by a lack of sleep or eating the wrong food or an overload of work or, or, or… The list goes on, and changes daily. Nothing about being chronically ill is predictable, and as Blair says, you have to laugh otherwise you’ll cry. And oh did I cry watching Introducing… not just for Blair, but for me. For my friends who suffer. For those we’ve lost. For every moment I’ve laid in my bed wondering how I was going to make it.

Thank you, Selma Blair. Thank you, Rachel Fleit. Your voice is my voice. My voice echoes your laughter, your sobs, your angry shouts. I’ve always felt a kinship to Blair, since her diagnosis was made public, and after the journey of Introducing… I feel even more that she is like an old friend. We went through this together. And I will forever have her strong, damaged, beautiful back.

Introducing, Selma Blair reviewed as part of our South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival coverage.

10 out of 10