Selena:The movieThe film opens on February 26, 1995, with Selena (Jennifer Lopez) playing a sold-out crowd of 65,000 at the Houston Astrodome. Back in 1961, a young Abraham Quintanilla and his band "The Dinos" are rejected for an audition by a whites-only restaurant owner due to the policy. In 1981, Abraham, now married to Marcela, has three kids. When his youngest daughter Selena sings with him, he is amazed by her voice and decides to start a band called "Selena y los Dinos" with Selena as the lead singer, his son A.B. on bass, and his older daughter Suzette on drums. He soon opens a restaurant and there Selena sings and is warmly received. Unfortunately, the Quintanilla family goes bankrupt and are forced to close the restaurant and move to Corpus Christi, Texas, to live with Abraham's brother.
Selena meets a guitarist, Chris Pérez (Jon Seda), who after joining the band, develops a friendship with her. Chris and Selena's friendship grows into love, but when Abraham catches them hugging on their tour bus, Big Bertha, he fires Chris from the band and harshly threatens a heartbroken Selena that if she continues seeing him, he will disband the group. Selena and Chris continue seeing each other behind Abraham's back, but soon she becomes tired and tells Chris that she wants to get married right away. On April 2, 1992, Selena and Chris secretly elope, but their marriage soon makes radio headlines. She goes to see her family, who eventually accept Chris into the Quintanilla family and he returns to being the lead guitarist for Los Dinos. During one of Selena's live performances, Jose Behar (the head of EMI Latin) and his music associates tell Abraham that they want to make an English-language album for Selena. In 1994, Selena opens her first boutique called "Selena Etc.", which her fan-club president Yolanda Saldívar manages, and her album Selena Live! wins a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American album. In early 1995, she starts recording her crossover album, and Saldívar gives her a friendship ring, which was really a gift from Selena's staff. Later, Selena finds out from her father that Yolanda was stealing money from her fan club and a lot of business records have gone missing. Soon a month later (though in reality it was on March 9), Abraham, Selena and Suzette confront Saldívar about the evidence they found. Saldívar denies knowing anything about the missing records and says that if given time, she can explain everything. Days afterwards Selena performs at the Houston Astrodome in front of 65,000 people. A month later on March 31, Selena is murdered by Saldívar, who is later arrested after a nine-and-a-half-hour standoff while Selena's fans, friends, and family are left grieving over her death. A montage featuring the real Selena from her live performances, award show appearances, and music videos follows and the film ends with a freeze frame of a smiling Selena and a caption "Selena Quintanilla Perez 1971 - 1995". |