"Britney Ever After" (2017 release; 90 min.) is a bio-pic of Britney Spears which premiered this weekend on Lifetime TV. As the movie opens, we are in 2008 and Britney is being interviewed in connection with her comeback. We then go back to "Florida 1998" when Britney is about to embark on her first tour, opening for *NSYNC. Britney soon reconnects with childhood friend Justin Timberlake and soon the two become an item. Meanwhile her mom and dad can't stop arguing about the smallest thing. At this point we are 15 min into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: first, this is an unauthorized bio-pic, made without any blessing or cooperation from the Britney camp. In and of itself this shouldn't stop the movie makers from putting together an interesting movie. Alas, they didn't. The movie heavily focuses on the Britney-Justin romance (taking more than a third of the movie), and then rushes through the rest of the material. The quickie Vegas wedding and subsequent dissolution is literally dealt with in a minute or so. Career highlights (such as VMA 2000) and lowlights (VMA 2007) flash by in no time. Worst of all is that there simply is no depth in any of the main characters, it all just happens. Not helping matters is that the movie producers don't have any original Britney music in the film, so the only and few performances we get are covers Britney did in her career (including the Stones' Satisfaction and Joan Jett's I Love Rock n Roll). All the other music is Britney-reminding club music. Natasha Bassett, the Australian actress playing Britney, does the best she can with the material given to here, but she can't save the movie from its strictly by-the-numbers feel (Bassett does the actual singing of the 2 covers mentioned earlier). Please note that, other than the very last minute of the movie, nothing beyond 2008 is covered.
As a Britney fan from the early days on, I was simply curious about this movie, and went into it without a lot of expectations. Even those low expectations weren't met. Given the tumultuous ups and downs Britney has had over the years, surely there is a great movie to be made one day about it all. Alas, "Britney Ever After" is not that movie. If you are a Britney fan, you will learn nothing new that you didn't know before. Viewer beware.
