Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil is a harrowing look at her addiction, sexual trauma, and recovery [SXSW 2021 review]

Pop star Demi Lovato has always been exceedingly candid over the course of her career, sharing her struggles with addiction, mental health, and body image issues with her legions of dedicated fans. In part, that’s what made her near-fatal drug overdose in 2018 so shocking — how had things gotten so bad? How had she been able to conceal this risky behavior from her close-knit circle? Lovato’s move towards hard drugs is only one of a number of revelations in director Michael D. Ratner’s Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, a harrowing look at Lovato’s battles with addiction, her back-and-forth recovery process, and much more.

The four-part YouTube doc also marks the first time Lovato has publicly disclosed that she was raped as a teenager while she was a Disney star, a horrific revelation that only adds to Lovato’s years of trauma.

The genesis of Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil goes back to an unfinished documentary on Lovato’s 2018 arena tour, which was halted mid-way through production. Lovato’s time spent in COVID quarantine inspired her to finally unburden herself of all the secrets and pain that had been consuming her for years, which she candidly shares in this engrossing and devastating documentary.

Lovato came to fame as a child star in the Disney entertainment universe, where she stared in teen-focused films like Camp Rock. As required for a Disney teen star at the time, she had to keep a squeaky-clean image, going so far as wearing a promise ring indicating she would wait until her marriage before having sex. That image was shaken up back in 2010 when at 18-years-old she was entered into a treatment facility to deal with her drug and alcohol addiction, as well as help with her mental health and eating disorders.

Once she emerged from the facility, Lovato quickly became a spokesperson for all of the ailments that had plagued her, publicly embracing sober living and openly discussing her issues with mental health and eating disorders. She addressed her struggles in her songs and spoke about her move to sobriety each night on-stage.

Yet beneath that public persona, Lovato was spiraling. With intense pressure from her management and her large team of helpers and staff, her access to food was tightly restricted, with strict rules extending to her entire entourage and even her closest friends. Her entire existence was being controlled, ostensibly in her best interest (a very similar vein runs through the new Brittany Spears documentary), but also to ensure she would be a viable money-making performer.

That level of control may work in certain cases, but as Lovato and her friends make abundantly clear in the film, it only pushed her to rebel. She eventually began drinking in moderation but eventually moved onto harder drugs, which resulted in her horrific 2018 overdose. While the overdose made international headlines, much of the details have been under wraps until now, and director Michael D. Ratner (who previously directed a similarly open documentary on Justin Bieber) spends a large amount of the film’s running time dedicated to the lead-up and after-effects of the overdose.

Lovato and her family, close friends, her extended team (including her personal assistant and her security guard), and members of the hospital staff detail just how close Lovato came to dying following her overdose. She suffered three strokes, was legally blind for a period during her recovery (she still suffers blind spots and lost her ability to drive) and came precariously close to suffering major brain damage. Lovato also discloses that she was raped the night of her overdose by the drug dealer who supplied her with the plethora of drugs, which may have contained fentanyl, her first time taking the incredibly dangerous drug.

One would think that Lovato would swear off drugs entirely after such a close shave with death, but as Dancing With the Devil makes clear, addiction doesn’t follow a logical course of action. Lovato went back to hard drugs again and even had another encounter with the same drug dealer that left her for dead, in a desperate attempt to take control of her life.

Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil is a damning look at the undue pressure put on young female celebrities, while also serving as a complicated examination of addiction, trauma, and mental health. The doc doesn’t offer any easy answers, and neither does Demi — after ping-ponging between sobriety and stints in treatment centers, she is now attempting to use alcohol and softer drugs in moderation, an experiment that her caseworker suggests may be beneficial, while a no-bullshit Elton John flatly asserts it will never work.

Michael D. Ratner has captured Demi Lovato in a fascinating moment — she has lived through so much, but still remains unsettled. She is still dealing with her demons but is attempting to channel her pain into new music (Lovato’s upcoming album, Dancing with the Devil… The Art of Starting Over, was announced just as the film premiered at SXSW).

The film concludes with a slightly eye-rolling reveal of Lovato’s new short haircut (cue the Instagram comments!), which is meant to show her personal evolution and embrace of her new queer identity. It feels more like promotional PR fluff as opposed to the raw emotional moments that preceded it, but it’s understandable that the filmmakers (and Lovato) would want to end the film on a triumphant note. Real-life may be much messier than that, but you can’t help rooting for Demi to finally have her happy ending.

The first two episodes of Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil will be available on YouTube on March 23, 2021. 

Looking for suggestions of what to stream at this year’s virtual SXSW film festival? Check out 15 of our must-see recommendations here.