As a recap of the meteoric rise and rise, and fall and fall of the woman behind the phenomenon that is Britney Spears, this was pretty good. A succinct recap of everything from birth through precocious performer and child star to teen queen and tabloid sensation.
Its pithy dissection of the people and cultural forces behind both her success, and later the narrative of her breakdown wastes no time. Indeed, it's so eager to never stay still it feels like director Samantha Stark was worried the audience either wouldn't be interested, or were already very familiar with the life story of La Spears. Luckily we are provided plenty of commentary from a number of people who were there (or thereabouts) who create a sense of an insider's view. Felicia Culotta (a long-time assistant), Kim Kaiman (A director of marketing at Britney's label), and Brittain Stone (Photography Director at Us Weekly) provide the ringside seat view, while Liz Day of the NY Times provides the narrative. The most incisive commentary comes from Wesley Morris, also of the Times. His sense of remove from the events, and his situating of Spears in the wider cultural moment really helps contextualise what was going on.
This is where the doc is most successful - in looking back with an objective eye on how the world bought into a collective narrative about Britney which placed enormous pressure on her at a young age, and when it began to take its toll, the narrative became much darker. Some of the most fascinating footage is the lack of awareness (or responsibility) any of the players have. Such as when one paparazzo suggests Britney never asked them to leave her alone. "How about when she said 'leave me alone'?" "Well, it wasn't like 'leave me alone forever'."
As Morris points out; "there was too much money to be made from her suffering."
However, the last third of the doc is much weaker.
Unfortunately, it suffers from being a little one-sided when it comes to the thorny issue of Britney's ongoing legal woes regarding her father's 12 years and counting conservatorship of her person and finances. I've been a Britney fan for years, and the idea that the conservatorship is ongoing seems ludicrous to me. Especially considering (as one contributor puts it) "when there's that amount of money to be made, you have to question the motives of everyone close to that person", but the doc seems set up from the outset to reach that conclusion. (The idea is planted when one early contributor remembers how Jamie Spears was always concerned with money.)
I'm a free-Britney supporter but I expected that idea to be more rigorously interrogated.
The free-Britney side has plenty of voices, but on the pro-conservatorship side, there is one lawyer who speaks in favour of conservatorships in a general sense. Like I say, the weight of evidence that Britney is capable seems undeniable so I ask myself what the judge(s) is/are seeing that we are not? That what this might be is never even raised by the film creates a gap, and a nagging sense that we must be missing something.
That some of the talking-heads advocating for the end to the conservatorship arrangements are themselves part of the "Britney industry" with a podcast to promote doesn't help the case either.
At least Michael Moore (who fleetingly appears here) would be upfront about his political leanings in his documentaries - Framing Britney Spears gives the appearance of an objective view, but edits in favour of one side.
It's a fascinating effort from the NY Times as they move into documentaries, and I still believe (still believe!) that it is well past time that Britney should be free to look after her own affairs, but that argument should have been able to withstand further scrutiny.
