STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Though maybe not at the height of her media stranglehold when she first took off in the 1999/2000 sort of period, Britney Spears is still quite a tabloid favourite, and the comings and goings of her private life are still quite hot topics in all the various showbiz gossip magazines/columns. Photos of her can still sell for a fair bit, too, as the various papparazzos chasing after her in this documentary prove. But around 2007/2008 the strain started to show and her mental health began to very publicly deteriorate. The ruthless ambition with which she made it at such a young age was revealed to be more a product of her mother pushing her towards something more than her own will and being burned out while still at quite a young and imperative age was causing her to rebel big style. For a period in the latter year, this documentary caught her in her private life, talking about the bad decisions she made, where her mind began to crumble, and how the help of friends and family (especially her father, who's now also in charge of a lot of her personal affairs) helped get her back on her feet again, as she prepares for her 'Circus' comeback tour.
Britney comes over a lot more grounded and mature than when she first started out, an old head on young shoulders, as though she's become very accepting and unfazed by the world she's a part of and nothing can hurt her now, like she could offer some useful advice to anyone else entering the profession. Here and there, though, she comes over all emotionally unstable, very suddenly, like anything could bring it on. There could well be some kind of mental disorder going on there. The interviewer is wise to let the lady herself do most of the talking, and let her naturally open up about a lot of what she needs to get off her chest. It's all handled very searingly, with a fair bit of hidden depth, like something that was meant to answer questions and not just be a throwaway interview. There's obviously still a large fan base that is interested in Spears's life and what's going on in it, and with sensitivity and compassion, the result here is a perfectly adequate piece that should satisfy a lot of Spears's more dedicated fans. ***
