Friday, Feb. 15, 2002 | 9:56 a.m.
Britney Spears' big-screen debut begins as Dame Judi Dench's should have -- with the singer/icon/world-class virgin dancing around in her bra and panties and singing along with Madonna's "Open Your Heart."
It seemed a pretty uncanny coincidence: I was wondering how "Crossroads" would stand up to Madonna's 1988 comedy "Who's That Girl," which in my humble estimation remains the high-water mark for musical blondes. A cougar, a girl on the run and Griffin Dunne equals poetry.
It's pointless for me to review "Crossroads" -- directed by Tamra Davis, though anyone could have done it -- in any conventional manner, because I'm not the film's target audience. Meaning: I'm not a 12-year-old girl, and I'm not the type of critic to laud Spears' acting abilities when what I've really got on my mind is the not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman doing a slow, undulating striptease atop my desk.
That is to say, she doesn't do a thing for me, but she can act. Shows signs of promise, anyway. Spears may develop into a fine actress, better than Madonna. (Can we just say, now that we have some distance from them, that none of Madonna's movies were any good? Except "Who's That Girl," of course?)
But it's going to be a battle. Spears' acting in "Crossroads" is like every other aspect of her performing persona -- precise, businesslike, coolly detached. There are no edges to her acting; she needs to let her demons out, and I don't think she has any.
Britney Spears needs to go out and get herself some demons.
She won't find them in "Crossroads." It's cute, but too slight, and has enough corn in it to make a half-ton of tortillas. Spears plays Lucy, a mechanic's daughter from Georgia (she says "y'all" once or twice; that's how you know) who goes on a voyage of discovery with childhood friends Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning). The former is a pretty, self-absorbed jerk, and the latter is a pregnant hardcase. Spears is generous in sharing time with them, and Manning's Mimi, in particular, grows on you fast.
The girls hitch a ride across the country with Ben (Anson Mount), a lanky musician with perpetual beard stubble and a come-hither pout. Periodically, Lucy's father pops up to tut-tut the whole mess, and demand Lucy's return; Dan Aykroyd handles the thankless role and gets virtually nothing to chew on. Wouldn't Britney want her screen father to appear, you know, cool? Like a paroled blues musician, perhaps, or an expert on the paranormal? Did she see any of Aykroyd's movies before she had her manager call him up and cast him?
Perhaps she did. I have to assume that "Crossroads" is everything Spears wanted it to be, for better or worse. She downplays her rock-star aura by making herself "brainy." ("I didn't go to one football game," she whines to her father on the morning of her valedictorian speech. "You're supposed to go to them!" Rah rah.) She mangles Joan Jett's "I Love Rock and Roll" in a karaoke scene ("Because I love Pat Benatar!" she has reportedly said).
And as a bonus, no male character comes across as anything but a sizable buffoon. Dad is gruff and oblivious; Ben throws full-blown girlie fits; Lucy's boyfriend pleads for sex; and the father of Mimi's child is -- what else? -- a date-rapist.
None of these choices bring much interest to what is, at best, a tepid debut. Why would Spears assume a character that's less interesting than the one she portrays onstage? The woman wore a damn snake to an awards show, for crying out loud -- why waste time playing a rube, when you can get your girls in flanking positions, strap on guns and knives and fight crime?
At least Madonna knew she had to be outrageous -- to make a colossal noise, good or bad. Spears' reductive screen debut is not what she needs right now. She needs something bigger than herself, something that compels us to ask, "who's that girl?" To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, first we take Judi Dench, Britney -- then we take Griffin Dunne.
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