Crossroads

Britney Spears plays preppy Lucy, whose yearning for her absent mother reunites her with childhood friends for a road trip: bitchy high-school queen Kit has signed on to visit her boyfriend, and pregnant trailer-park chick Mimi wants to enter a singing competition in LA. And they're travelling cross-country in style, thanks to enigmatic beefcake musician Ben (Mount) and his cool convertible. As kitschy escapism it's passably entertaining with the girls packing enough costume changes for the radiant open road to resemble a fashion shoot. A successful karaoke set hauls in a fortune, and 'real' adults barely surface. However, it's also riddled with leaden Hollywood clichés: geeky girls transform, geeky guys don't get laid, and during a love scene, the camera tastefully pans away to crashing waves. Britney is slick and confident, with everything pushing her centrestage. Which means that more emotive players, such as Mimi (Manning), suffer insensitively handled storylines. What could have been a fabulous pop fantasy becomes a one-track star vehicle that tramples down its own potential.