The generous critic would try to interpret Britney Spears' movie debut in Crossroads as a young girl's journey into womanhood or, better yet, as a pseudo-intellectual Kerouac-esque road narrative. I, however, refuse to even associate such sophisticated explanations with this mockery of a movie.
Crossroads attempts to tackle hard-hitting issues like parental abandonment, teenage pregnancy, rape, obesity, and, above all, the true meaning of love. While the film fails miserably, potential moviegoers will be pleased to know that it successfully degrades and stereotypes women. The movie may induce a hearty dose of laughter amongst more critical audience members, but it has the potential to scar the younger people in the crowd. While I hope no one expected much from this female pop icon, Spears has quite simply crashed and burned with this one.
Under the brilliant direction of Tamra Davis, Britney Spears takes on the incredibly challenging role of Lucy, an 18-year-old high school valedictorian (emphasis courtesy of Spears' southern twang and some large-print cue cards) from a small-town in Georgia. Dan Aykroyd tries to appease nostalgic fans flocking to see his latest and greatest by masterfully pinning together his previous, ingenious character sketches from Coneheads as he plays Lucy's doting father, who pops up every now and again to offer Lucy some life direction.
The story really starts rolling when Britney, shedding a tear, articulately declares: "All this stuff just isn't enough." The "stuff" that she so eloquently refers to are her accomplishments and predestined future as a doctor. Looking for solutions to small-town-life problems, Britney makes some cursory moves to ameliorate her situation. After parading around in pink lacy underwear and almost losing her virginity, she makes a more serious decision - to hit the road with two childhood friends, Mimi (Taryn Manning) and Kit (Zoe Saldana).
Lucky for the girls, there is a strong, virile, mildly attractive, masculine bad-ass named Ben (Anson Mount) behind the wheel of a baby yellow '76 Buick convertible who offers to drive the girls cross-country in search of their respective dreams. Under the watchful eye of Mount - who clearly took the part as Ben so he could be that dude who got to kiss Britney Spears - the girls reveal their personal traumas and eventually comfort other's pain through friendship and true love.
After harboring the suspicion that Ben was a killer -a rumor that the girls believe for most of the movie -the girls learn that this is not the case. In what may be the only good line in the entire movie, Ben more or less calls the girls idiotic for going on a road trip with someone they thought was a convicted murderer. Honestly, he's right! How stupid can they get? And, how stupid can the brilliant writers of this movie make girls look?
In the end, Lucy falls in love with Ben and goes on to be a singer. Imagine that. She presumably makes it big with the Britney Spears original "Not a Girl, Not Yet A Woman," a touching work that really encompasses the coming-of-age crossroad, if you will, of Britney and Lucy.
The most fundamental problem with the film is arguably its characters, which are hard to relate to and serve as terrible role models for young girls. While all three girls have different life stories, they all suffer from incredible insecurities that make them take a backseat to men.
In fact, in the movie, all of the young ladies are - at one point or another - physically seated in the back seat of the baby yellow convertible while their male friend drives. Also, save one short occurrence when Lucy drives, not one of the women is actually allowed to drive the car across the country. This could be symbolically interpreted as a missed opportunity to take control of their lives and move on or perhaps, from a more feminist perspective, as a permanent inferior position to men.
Additionally, the girls' individual characters, while different, perpetuate stereotypes about women. Spears always wears soft pinks and yellows by day and hooker-like get-ups by night. She speaks softly and is never too confrontational. Ben, on the other hand, can get mad and takes the lead in all sexual endeavors. Additionally, Lucy can't defend herself from men. On one occasion, Ben, her knight in shining armor, saves her when another man tries to groove with her at a club.
Kit is the archetypal high-maintenance chick who struts around with curlers in her hair and a bad attitude, much like that of Eva Rodriquez, Saldana's famed character in the classic ballet flick, Center Stage.
Mimi is the girl with no direction - the trailer trash, as she is referred to in the movie, who is pregnant and thinks she can be a mother at the tender age of 18. With no money in her pocket, she seems like an absolute fool, especially since her only aspiration is to be a singer, though she has no talent.
The girls do grow, however, as evidenced by their willingness to rough it one evening, sleeping outdoors in the forest instead of in a hotel room. Of course, the pitching of a tent in the forest was originally Ben's idea... one that Kit objected to.
Another major flaw in the film is the emphasis on love and how it will heal all that is wrong. My biggest beef here is not with the importance of ultimate significance of true love. Rather, the fact that young Britney aficionados will leave this movie thinking that if they have sex - which Britney ultimately does - and marry, then everything will be grand. The importance of education is cast aside. The importance of self and self-confidence is also pushed by the wayside. The only positive message is that you must follow your dream, though this should inevitably include a man to drive you down the correct road, as was the case with Lucy.
A critique of Spears herself is also important here. Spears the actress is the same as Spears the interviewee or Spears the performer, as some of the movie does involve her singing and dancing. She has no real finesse. She has no real charm. She is your classic Britney: the airheaded girl-next-door. Thus, her playing an intelligent teen is laughable. And, sadly, her playing an aspiring singer is also loudly amusing, especially when she first performs the musical version of the poem her character Lucy writes: "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman."
Just imagine Britney at a piano with her man-friend Ben playing the music he has written for her poem. She takes one look at her poem, then the music, and while methodically stroking the large white piano, she starts to hum, introducing a slight bravado while closing her eyes. Slowly but surely, she enters into her extremely heart-warming rendition of the song.
While you may hope, for her sake, that this is the only time she employs this embarrassing singing routine, you're sorely mistaken. In fact, she does this during one of the first road trip scenes when *NSYNC's "Bye, Bye, Bye" came on the radio. *NSYNC star Justin Timberlake may like Britney a whole lot, but he probably didn't want her messing with his lyrical genius. Good thing she was using his pivotal song to signify her passage from one part of her life into another. How romantic!
While Crossroads clearly contains nothing redeeming content-wise, it's unbelievably funny if you watch it with a critical eye. It's almost like reading a good edition of Cosmopolitan and making fun of it. After talking with some ten-year-old die hard Britney fans before the movie began, however, I fear for the impressionable audience members and sincerely hope that they have some strong role models in their lives before and after wasting money on this movie.
