![]() ![]() Having focused so much on the start of the conservatorship, and the years now seared into public consciousness via memes, there’s hardly any time to investigate the most serious of recent events. Ghalib also hands over text messages between him and Spears, which doesn’t feel right, not least because of allegations in the New York Times’ follow-up documentary, Controlling Britney Spears, that Spears’ phone was secretly monitored by her father and a security team (although both stressed the legality of their actions in relation to the conservatorship). It’s an odd, sad story that shows that the singer was keen to take more control, but Lutfi and Ghalib’s motivations feel underexplored. Eliscu recounts how she handed the petition to Spears – whom she had interviewed twice for Rolling Stone in previous years – under a toilet stall in a hotel. The pair are given what amounts to a redemption arc, with Eliscu detailing how they spearheaded a petition to get Spears’ lawyer changed, asking for the journalist’s involvement. While Ghalib was often in contact with Jamie, Lutfi was seen as a pariah by the Spears family who, at one point, accused him of drugging Britney, which he denies here. Troublingly, the documentary makers chose to interview two controversial figures from Spears’ past – paparazzo-turned-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib and Spears’ one-time manager (his words) and “friend sometimes” (her words) Sam Lutfi. Any time Jamie Spears is mentioned we get a slow zooming shot of his face. ![]() It often has the feel of a schlocky true crime documentary, with Carr and the journalist Jenny Eliscu shown riffling through papers, or sticking name tags on pictures showing the main protagonists. It pores over Spears’ divorce from Kevin Federline in a way that feels tabloid-y, while dramatic instrumental music hums underneath. Rather it follows a standard chronological narrative, zipping through the successes of the early years before homing in on troubled times. Oddly, the documentary chooses not to place Spears’ own words – a rarity for so long – at the start of the film. Conceived two and half years ago as an insight into “ artistry and her media portrayal”, the film was hastily retooled after Framing Britney Spears and Spears’ explosive testimony at a conservatorship hearing in July. In this context, Netflix’s Britney vs Spears – directed and narrated by fan and film-maker Erin Lee Carr – feels uncomfortable. ![]() ![]() “I think the world is more interested in the negative !!!!” she said. In May, Spears called the BBC documentary The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship hypocritical. A month after it aired, Spears said on Instagram that she was “embarrassed by the light they put me in” and that “she cried for two weeks”. In February, the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears recast her career through a post-#MeToo lens, via familiar shots of Spears shaving her head and distressing images from 2008 of her in the back of an ambulance prior to being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. It’s a question also posed by film-makers, whose narrative arcs often involve picking at the scabs before reaching for the plasters. It has been that way since she was placed in a controversial conservatorship, presided over by her father, Jamie, in 2008. What is in Britney Spears’ best interests? It’s a question that has been discussed and dissected by those around the pop star for 13 years, often abstractly, or with feigned concern, in the press or in court documents. ![]()
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