CROSSROADS

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: sexual content, thematic elements

Rated:

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. Britney Spears is following in the footsteps of numerous pop icons before her. Mariah Carrey's film attempts bombed at the box office. Madonna never fails to pull in audiences. Jennifer Lopez has found a lovely nitch doing gritty dramas and fluffy romantic comedies. So where does Britney fit in? Wherever she wants to! Her film has comedy, drama, romance, and more than a few witty and even touching moments. Even so, it's nothing we wouldn't expect... a lot of skimpy clothing and a flippant attitude toward casual sex mars the message.

Flashlights illuminate the darkness as three giggling girls bury a box full of their dreams, and promise to return ten years later to dig it up on prom night. They will be friends forever, they swear. But dreams change, and the girls drift apart. Lucy's life has been a life of convention, of rules, of studying. She hasn't had time for a boyfriend, for parties, for music, for friendship. She's still a virgin! [Horror!] Her friends Mimi and Kit have taken different paths in the road of life. Kit is the homecoming queen, and engaged to a high-profile boyfriend; she has all the clothes, friends, and partying anyone could want. Mimi is the local trailer park chick, pregnant, although she refuses to reveal who the father is.

The girls meet back up to dig up their box, and each realize that their dreams -- the things they promised one another they would do -- haven't come true. Lucy left an image of her mother, who abandoned her and her father when she was a child. She resolved one day to find her. Mimi left a globe, because she wanted to see the world. And Kit's memory is her bridal Barbie, signifying that she wants to get married. It looks like only her dream is coming true... or is it? Her boyfriend, currently at college in California, doesn't seem all that interested in coming to visit her over the summer. Mimi decides that her dream IS going to come true, and catches a ride with Ben, an unknown guy from school, to California. At the last minute, her two former friends decide to come along, but it's going to be a bumpy ride.

These girls haven't gotten along since sixth grade. And they learn along the way that their driver has been in jail... possibly for murder! The threesome set out with barely any money, little expectations, not even a map to guide them. And somehow they find romance, friendship, and California without any major downfalls... unfortunately, it's what happens THERE that brings the tragedy into this happy gathering. Friendship is root of the film but even the good lessons are overshadowed by poor examples of growing up. Stupid choices, happy endings. Doesn't happen in real life -- but the film also manages to show the pitfalls of growing up.

I really liked the way the girls became friends again, after all that time apart. It proves that you don't need things in common to remain friends. It has several bittersweet turns, as the girls realize their dreams aren't all they thought them to be. I will warn you -- there may be spoilers in the next paragraph. Ben didn't do jail time for killing someone; it was an act of kindness wrongly persecuted by a cruel stepfather that landed him in the local pokey. Mimi insists on keeping her baby, which is the production of date rape, rather than aborting it, which is a nice change. Lucy realizes that the important thing in life is the family who stays and cares for you, rather than the mom who ran away.

Too bad problematic content intrudes. Lucy and her lab partner plan to have sex in the early part of the film; they go to a hotel room and romp half-dressed for awhile to suggestive music before she decides against it. (She is shown in a lacy bra and panties.) She's dancing in her underwear in the opening credits; the girls dance suggestively in low-cut tops and high-cut shorts at a bar to earn money; a guy comes on to Lucy on the dance floor. Innuendo, discussions on certain private parts of the anatomy, a guy staying in a girl's hotel room, and implied sex fill out the rest of the bad content, along with heavy drinking and some profanity. 

Overall, the soundtrack is great -- some of Britney's best known songs intrude, along with country singers and even NSync (a tribute, no doubt, to then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake). Crossroads isn't as bad as Glitter, and Britney isn't as bad of an actress as most would have you think. The bottom line is the 60's message all over again: "If it feels good, do it!" The problem with that policy is and always will be that actions have consequences. Britney has so much influence over teen girls but she's chosen to once again sell herself short.