Crossroads (2002)
CROSSROADS
OUTLINE:
Lucy (Britney Spears), Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning) are three teens friends who re-marry on prom tenebriousness and force up a for the nonce at once capsule they buried eight years ago. Each teen discovers their lost dreams. Extricate-heart Gear is several months enceinte. Uptight Mimi has battled weight collapse. And thanks to her protective father (Dan Aykroyd) Lucy has never met her mother. A trip to L.A. to audition seeing that a record company ascendancy be just the split they stress, so the girls grab a ride with stubbly-faced musician Ben (Anson Mount) and have some fooling around until the brown comes up ended Santa Monica Boulevard.
Review by Richard Kuipers:
Is this the worst take ever made by a pop be featured? Worse than Mariah Carey in Glitter, Prince in Under The Cherry Moon, Mick Jagger in Freejack and Dolly Parton in Straight Talk. Clout down your hard-earned bucks at the box office and undaunted a cinema well supplied of Spears devotees and decide for yourself. What you'll witness is an amateurish piece of girly bonding as three unappealing sophomoric ladies borrow their way from Georgia to LA without a cent in their pockets and only a song in their hearts. A dexterous predisposition because Britney and her back-up singers prove how submissive it is to afford rood-country trips when you can whip up winning routines at karaoke nights. Especially when your outfits triumph you look relish you've already vomit up a few years trawling 42nd St. But wait – Britney's the virgin daughter of take dad/car mechanic Dan Aykroyd when she starts this trip so there is much tension as we watch her get closer to guitarist/driver driver Ben (Anson Mount). Wish she or won't she? Your heart really goes out to these addle-brained youngsters who are caught up in all sorts of existential nightmares. 'I was up there getting my diploma and I thought, is this it?', says poor rich kid Kit whose biggest conundrum is that she's prettier than her mum. If just Ingmar Bergman could have distilled the essence of trial with such searing impact. Spears' sickly wholesomeness is just the beginning of what's wrong with this ghastly concoction. It may be loved by a section of its target audience but there's nothing here for anyone else. At one point she sings 'I'm not a girl, I'm not a woman'. The next line should be 'I'm also not an actress'. Crummy beyond reliance.
Review by Shannon J. Harvey:
Oops.. It's happened again, another pop star singing pop songs on the strapping screen. I smell another Glitter, which tried really hard not to sound like the true fabliau of Mariah Carey's spark of life. Crossroads, starring the world's most foul "virgin" Britney Spears, is a similar "search for your long lost mother" movie, but it avoids any preachy bigger pictures and isn't focused on anecdote self-centred individual. Here you come by three. But let's not fool ourselves; Crossroads will be known as nothing other than Britney Spears? first silver screen. It seems to have been made specifically to begin her acting career. There's no influence since her little young woman perfect character to join the low road trip other than to authorize to Britney lose her virginity and yodel a few appear songs along the way. Miss Spears – thanks to a sugary-sweet but fully manipulative order – emerges in one piece. She's a taking leading lady with that poodle haircut, those telling brown eyes and that cheeky grin. She's cute-as-a-button in a Joey About kind of way, and although she's yet to lose the puppy rotundity she clearly lost the training bra years ago. She's also everlastingly clad in baby pink or powder blue clothes, which is ironic understood the film's hook is her verse that becomes a pop-song called "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman." Those lyrics were not written by Bachelorette Spears, but they cleverly capture the spirit of Britney's lyrics, which coyly circle enveloping the singer's self-confessed chastity. Reading the poem drew audible groans and giggles from the audience. The song later on tested the limits of Britney's fandom. But I'm sure Crossroads drive do her pursuit no harm. After all, 90 per cent of the audience filing out of the cinema were girls under 16 with slim builds and tight tops. Wellnigh all had volume smiles on their faces – as did I, but in a land of bemused irony at this sad parade. It ascendancy be too harsh to say Crossroads plays like a 96-minute Britney music video, but it's single a G-string away.
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CROSSROADS
(M)
(US)
CAST:
Britney Spears, Zoe Saldana, Anson Mount, Taryn Manning, Justin Dream of
REGISSEUR:
Ann Carli
DIRECTOR:
Tamra Davis
LIBRETTO:
Shonda Rhymes
CINEMATOGRAPHER:
Eric Alan Edwards
EDITOR:
Melissa Kent
MUSIC:
Trevor Jones (Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake ? songs)
PRODUCTION SCHEME:
Waldemar Kalinowski
RUNNING TIME:
94 minutes
AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR:
Roadshow
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE:
April 18, 2002
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR:
Roadshow Pageant
VIDEO RELEASE:
October 9, 2002