That was a very difficult film to watch. At first I thought Selma was actually Gene's sister because she looked so young. I thought adults would help her because of that. I also thought Jeff was a creepy guy, waiting to drive her home every day. But this is another film that tells the audience that people are not always what they seem. The cop and his wife looked like they were the only ones to help her, but they were responsible for her downward spiral. All Selma wanted to do was give her son what she couldn't have: sight. She physically and metaphorically lost her sight, trusting the wrong people to help her.
The film was also very staged. Selma was an actor in the Sound of Music, and once she took herself out of it, her whole life became a musical as a way to escape her tragedies. She used rhythms and dancing to get her through her tough times. In every single "number" that Selma fantasized, a man was always there to help her (the police officer forgiving her, her son singing "you just did what you had to", workmen on the train tracks with her and Jeff, Novie who tap-danced with her on the judge's desk). At the final close of the curtain (literally and figuratively), a quote affirms what Selma always thought: the last song never has to be the last song if you don't think it is. The phone rings after her last song, but she has been given closure when Cathy gives her Gene's glasses.
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