All they have is each other
"This time, we didn't make any wishes for the future. We said goodbye to our past. Now, none of us has any idea where life's gonna take us, 'cause what we have is now. And right now, we have each other..."
Crossroads is a 2002 comedy-drama roadtrip film directed by Tamra Davis and starring Britney Spears, Zoe Saldaña and Taryn Manning (before 8 Mile).
Written by Shonda Rhimes, the film tells the coming of age story of Lucy (Spears) and her childhood best friends Kit (Saldana) and Mimi (Manning) as they take a cross-country road trip, finding themselves and their friendship in the process. The film also stars Dan Aykroyd as Lucy's father, Kim Cattrall as Lucy's mother, and Anson Mount (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) as Ben.
The script for the film was developed specifically for the singer by herself and her team. Filming began in March 2001, taking place in Spears' home state, Louisiana, as well as Los Angeles, California. Britney wanted "a movie with meaning which didn't talk down to her peers and dealt with real issues" and no one can doubt it deals with real issues, pregnancy, cheating, running away, runaway parents, abusive parents to name a few. It's also subtly written enough that her younger fans around the time could understand it.
Not to be confused with the 1986 Urban Fantasy film of the same name starring Ralph Macchio.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Lucy's dad smothers her, her mother abandoned her, and Kit's mother criticised her for her appearance as a child and now resents her. Ben also takes his stepsister away from her physically abusive father. To be fair to Lucy's father, he ultimately accepts her decision to pursue a musical career and is shown to be proud of her at her audition.
- Artistic License – Geography: The cross-country trip seems to take far longer than it really should to get from Georgia to the west coast. For instance, the girls travel for two and a half days from morning until night (indicated by nighttime scenes set at two separate motels) before they stop within walking distance of New Orleans' French Quarter when the car suffers a breakdown. Even coming from as far east as Savannah, a trip of that length can be made in about 10-12 hours depending on the number of stops.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Prom queen Kit, Lucy the valedictorian and Mimi, who can throw a mean right hook.
- Be Yourself: An idea subtly played into the movie; Lucy in particular learns to stop living her life for her father and pursue her own musical ambitions rather than follow his plan for her.
- Berserk Button: you don't touch Ben's car!
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Lucy, Kit and Mimi.
- Clueless Aesop: All that stuff about sex, its dangers, and its consequences ends up falling apart because it's a PG-13 film aimed at tweens, and the characters end up dodging all the worst possibilities. Mimi's Convenient Miscarriage is probably the most infamous one.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Lucy's father being so closed off when it comes to her mother going AWOL kicks off the plot.
- Convenient Miscarriage: Mimi has this after they get to LA.
- Color-Coded Characters: Kit is in pink and purple, Mimi is in blue and green, Lucy is in yellow and white, and Ben is in brown and grey.
- Drama Queen: Kit. She is constituted of 60% drama and 40% sass.
- Easter Egg: The DVD features Easter eggs in the form of diary entries/talking to yourself moments for Lucy and Ben, which are used as trailers for the movie.
- Empty Nest: Why Lucy's father didn't want her to leave...
- Fanservice: Britney in her underwear, but also all of her singing scenes have some fanservice-y outfits. It has been suggested that her midriff should get its own credit in the film.
- Follow Your Heart: Worked in with the Lucy plot.
- For Your Own Good: Lucy feels forced to become a doctor, because her father thinks it's best for her.
- Girlish Pigtails: Mimi's favourite hair style.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: The possibility of an abortion never comes up, not even by implication, as a possible solution to the fact that both Mimi and her deadbeat boyfriend (even before it's established that the boyfriend isn't the father and the real father is Kit's cheating fiancé) are obviously completely financially and emotionally unprepared for parenthood. The whole thing is eventually rendered moot however, when Mimi suffers a Convenient Miscarriage.
- Go-Getter Girl: Subverted with Lucy. Her father raised her to be this, in order for her to become a doctor. We later find out she just wants to enjoy life and pursue music.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Kit's mom sent her to fat camp to become thinner but she now resents that her daughter is more beautiful than she is.
- I Just Want to Be Free: Lucy mentions this being her reason for running away the first time and her reason for asking to leave the second time.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Lucy and Ben in their almost kiss in the woods, interrupted hilariously by Mimi's screaming about something that bit her in the ass. Hilarity Ensues.
- May–December Romance: Played with the Lucy-Ben plot. Lucy is 18 and while Ben isn’t that much older, he can legally enter bars. He was also likely tried as an adult for his “crime” so he also has a criminal record.
- A Minor Kidroduction: In the movie's prologue Lucy, Kit and Mimi are shown as 10-year-olds.
- Missing Mom: Lucy’s
- Mommy Had A Good Reason For Abandoning You: Lucy thinks her mom had this, but it is bitterly subverted when the woman bluntly tells her daughter she left because she just didn't want her.
- My Beloved Smother: Kit's mom and Lucy's dad each try to control their daughters' lives.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Ben went to jail for taking his abused little step-sister across state lines (which he legally couldn't do as she wasn't related to him).
- The Power of Friendship: Because having two Aesops is not enough, this is the most Anvilicious Aesop nevertheless.
- Parents as People: All the parents are flawed, but human.
- Perma-Stubble: Ben. Part of his Troubled, but Cute bad boy appeal.
- Rape as Drama: The cause of Mimi's pregnancy, and Kit's fiance is her rapist. Lucy is manhandled at a bar until Ben steps in, which comes just before Mimi's admission.
- Road Trip Plot: Mimi is going to Los Angeles for a singing audition, and Kit and Lucy join so that Kit can see her fiancé in L.A. and Lucy can visit her long-lost mother in Arizona.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: The Movie. Lucy is the only virgin amongst the three girls in the beginning and there's never any doubt that her coming of age story is going to involve her losing it. Lucy's lab partner insists that a guy going to college a virgin will be ostracized.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: All three girls set out with a specific goal in mind; Lucy to reconnect with her mother who abandoned her, Kit to visit her fiance and Mimi to pursue a singing career. Lucy's mother tells her she was a mistake and never wanted her, Kit discovers her fiancé cheating and not only is Mimi upstaged by Lucy's superior voice, but she also loses her baby (although Mimi chose to give her audition to Lucy as she recognised that her friend was just the better singer)
- Slumber Party: The girls' night at the hotel turns into this, shown in a heartwarming montage.
- Staircase Tumble: How Mimi loses her baby.
- Tagline:
- Dreams change. Friends are forever.
- What we have is now. And right now, we have each other
- Troubled, but Cute: Ben. Has the bad boy act down to the obligatory vintage convertible, tattoos, man jewelry, and Perma-Stubble. In fact, he is actually a very nice guy.
- Two Roads Before You: Lucy-Doctor or Singer, Mimi + Kit-return to hometown or settle in LA with Lucy, Ben-continue relationship with Lucy or leave her because she's younger than him.
- Uptown Girl: Lucy and Ben's relationship is depicted as this. Not exactly played straight, seeing how she is middle class at most, and he is from a trailer park.
- The Un-Favourite: Straight as you can get since Carolyne tells Lucy to her face that she never wanted to have her and that she was a mistake, abandoning Lucy when she was only three years old and the women still doesn't want her. Telling Lucy she only had her because her father made her do it. She later had two sons to another man who she did not leave.
- Wall Bang Her: Teased in Lucy and Ben's sex scene. A little odd, seeing how it's her first time. Up against a glass wall.
- Waxing Lyrical: Seeing how this is Britney's movie, it's hardly surprising that her music is shoved in every corner of the movie. There is a scene where Lucy reads to Ben one of her "poems", I'm not a girl.
- Wrench Wench: Lucy's father is a mechanic with his own shop, so it isn't surprising that she has shades of this.
- All I need is time, a moment that is mine, so while I'm in between,
I'm not a girl, not yet a woman
