The Tale of Two Starlets: Mandy Moore and Britney Spears Take On The Silver Screen by antiGUY

We interrupt our normally scheduled “What The Hell” article for a special edition review, as antiGUY looks at the acting debuts of teen popstars Britney Spears and Mandy Moore

The Tale of Two Starlets: Mandy Moore and Britney Spears Take On The Silver Screen

It was best of films. It was the worst of films. So goes my impression of the debuts of teen pop singers Mandy Moore and Britney Spears as leading ladies. 

With the summer home video release of “A Walk to Remember” with Mandy Moore and “Crossroads” with Britney Spears, I thought it might be fun to look at both films to see how well these teen pop singers talents translated over into acting and then to compare the two films and performances. 

If this were a competition, there would be no contest; Mandy Moore easily walks away the victor, which may and should open doors for her in Hollywood. Britney on the other hand, may have damaged her career with her film, as the intention of using it as a vehicle to launch her acting career fails dismally. To be fair, Mandy Moore had a far better script and storyline to work with, but her acting abilities were really what stole the show and left many with a newfound respect for her.  With that out of the way, let’s look at each film. 

Britney Spears Takes A Wrong Turn At The “Crossroads” 

Screenwriter Shonda Rhimes must have missed the recent spoof, “Not Another Teen Movie” because “Crossroads” was replete with almost every teen cliché in the book. Going in I really wanted to give Britney the benefit of the doubt thinking, “who knows maybe she can act?” But the writing was on the wall even before her name appeared in the opening credits. As the “MTV films” logo flash across the screen I had a sneaking suspicion of what was to come, and my worst fears were realized with Britney’s first scene, where we see her in her underwear singing a Madonna song. This only deepened my feeling of dread. It was all down hill from there. 

You do have to hand it to the filmmakers here; they managed to show Britney in her underwear twice within the first 10 minutes. So we know what aspect of her “personality” they were focusing on and it sure wasn’t her acting abilities.  They got the requisite prom scene out of the way in the first part of the film, as well as the old “losing your virginity on prom night” subplot that goes along with it. 

Lucy, played by Spears is supposed to be the nerdy class valedictorian who regrets not having more fun during her high school years. Which doesn’t work well since she looks like Britney Spears not the smartest kid in the class, they didn’t even attempt to tone down her image to fit the role. It gets better; her deep seeded ambition is to, yes--you guessed it—sing. Unfortunately, her father, played by Dan Aykroyd, has his heart set on her becoming a doctor. 

The plot revolves around Lucy and her two best friends from childhood, who had drifted apart over the years. Mimi, played by Taryn Manning, is the outcast rebel who also happens to be five months pregnant. The trio is rounded out by Kit (Zoe Saldana) who plays the typical character for any teen movie; “the most popular girl in school”.  They set out on a cross-country trek from Georgia to California so that Mimi can follow her dream of becoming a singer. Mimi’s just released from jail friend, Ben (Anson Mount), leads them on their journey and also provides the love interest for Spears. You get the picture, the film from this point is really a montage of them driving cross country, joking, staying in sleazebag motels, the car breaking down, and them arguing over the music they want to play on the car radio. Ben wants to listen to the Cult and the teenyboppers want N Sync. Chalk one up for Ben! The ending is predictable and what you have seen in dozens if not hundreds of films before. A mindless script really derails Britney’s acting aspirations, (we won’t talk about them taking two days to travel a distance that would take most people about 8 hours) Sure that’s nitpicking and there is enough to criticize aside from the flaws in the script. The biggest flop of the movie is the karaoke scene where Britney and her friends, complete with a scratching d-jay, deliver an truly awful rendition of Joan Jett’s, “I Love Rock N’ Roll”. Without the studio magic to enhance her voice, Britney’s vocals come out rather flat. The bogus crowd reaction comes off as comical, as it is hard to imagine people actually being that enthusiastic for the botched karaoke job that is being presented on the stage.

The attempt to add depth to the characters by giving them secrets and other problems doesn’t help, because the dialog and characters are too bland to care about. In the end, the movie is as shallow as Britney’s pop songs. Maybe she will shock us with her next attempt at acting and take on a more serious role that will test her as an actress? As it stands this film isn’t quite as bad as say Vanilla Ice’s attempt at acting but it comes pretty close.  I couldn’t help but feel a deep remorse over the hour and half of my life that I had just wasted and would never be able to reclaim by watching this movie. 

In the interest of fairness I must point out that my view of “Crossroads” may have been tainted by the fact that I saw Mandy Moore’s performance in “A Walk To Remember” before watching this film. So Britney had a lot to live up to. Because of this, it turns out that Britney is not only not in the same league as Mandy as an actress, she's not even in the same ballgame. Maybe she will do better next time and challenge herself if she is given a better script to work with. We will have to wait and see. Ok that was Britney, now let’s take a look at Mandy Moore’s “A Walk to Remember”. 

Mandy Moore Delivers “A Walk To Remember”

Normally, I would not have bothered to watch this movie. I vaguely remembered the trailer and thought like most, it was your typical popular guy falls for the unpopular girl teen movie. Man, was I wrong! Because of the Mandy Moore music connection, one of the promo companies we deal with sent an advance of the DVD for us to review. It sat on my desk for about a week collecting dust. Then one night, I was home bored stiff, channel surfing and not having any luck finding something interesting to watch. (so much for the 100+ channels on digital cable!) So I figured what the hell, I’ll give this movie a shot and if it sucks, I’ll just turn it off. 

So you can see that my expectations were really low going in. I was soon to discover that what I thought the movie was going to be and what it ended up being were totally different. This wasn’t just another teen movie, but actually a really well developed drama based on the Nicholas Sparks best selling novel, (note Sparks also wrote, “Message In a Bottle” and “The Rescue”). Given the fact that the main characters are young, it’s natural to think this was just another “teen” movie but it actually ended up being more of an adult film with teen actors and characters. Some have even called this film a modern less melodramatic take on “Love Story”. And it’s true, the story and major themes have more in common with films like “Jerry McGuire” and “As Good as It Gets” than it does with teen movies like “Drive Me Crazy”, “She’s All That” or “Can't Hardly Wait”. 

While the plot wasn’t the most original, it contained story elements that have been done numerous times before; it was really the acting and direction that brought the film its originality, depth, and dare I use the word, magic. It starts out with the fairly typical popular kid Landon Carter (Shane West) who is a bit lost, rebellious and is heading nowhere fast. He gets busted for pulling a stupid hazing prank that resulted in the new kid in school getting seriously hurt. As part of his punishment, he is told he has to participate in the school’s spring play and tutor Jr. High School kids on weekends. This is where Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore) comes in. Landon needs help with his acting so he turns to Jamie. 

Jamie is the only daughter of the town’s minister, so the character could have easily ended up being a total cliché’. Fortunately, screenwriter Karen Janszen obviously worked hard to escape that trap by making Jamie’s character both good natured and sweet but also emotionally strong and equally vulnerable despite her inner self-confidence. In other words, Jamie was more true to life than the cookie cutter fiction character we would expect. Mandy Moore really brought Jamie to life and as you get further into the movie, you forget she is a teen popstar and instead accept her as Jamie.  Unlike Spears, who really appeared to be playing herself in Crossroads, Mandy Moore underwent a transformation to become the opposite of what her teen-pop star image is. The blond hair and pouting lips that she is known for were replaced by brown hair, sparse make-up and understated clothing. So visually she did make a believable daughter of a small town’s Baptist preacher. In some scenes, Moore delivers more with her facial expressions and body language than with her dialog, it makes you wonder just how much she has in common with the character she is portraying on screen. 

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