Crossroads (2002 Film) - Plot

Plot

Lucy (Britney Spears), Mimi (Taryn Manning) and Kit (Zoe Saldana) are three friends who live in a small town located in the state of Georgia. While children, they bury a "wish box" in the ground, and vow to dig it up on the night of their high school graduation, also pledging to stay best friends forever. However, as they grow up, they focus on different aspects of their lives, and stop being friends. Lucy turns out to be the smart girl with perfect grades, Kit becomes the popular girl in school, and Mimi is a teenager who ends up being pregnant. On the night of their graduation, they keep their promise and get together to open the "wish box". As they start talking again, they remember their old wishes while burying the box: Mimi wanted to travel to California, Lucy wanted to see her mother again, and Kit wanted to get married. Mimi brings up the topic of going to Los Angeles for a record contract audition. They all decide to go together; Lucy to visit her mom in Tucson, Arizona and Kit to visit her fiance in Los Angeles.

They set out on the road with little money in a yellow 1969 Buick Skylark convertible with a guy named Ben (Anson Mount). Lucy, however, leaves without the permission of her father Pete (Dan Aykroyd), who wakes up the next day to find his daughter is gone. Shortly into their journey, the car breaks down. They realise that they don't have enough money between them for the travel nor the repair costs. Mimi then suggests that she sing karaoke at a local bar, where good singers are tipped well by the costumers. While at the bar, the girls dress up and go the stage to perform. However, when the song starts Mimi develops stage fright, being unable to sing. Seeing that they needed the money, Lucy takes her place, and quickly becomes a hit with the crowd. They make enough money to fix the car and continue on their way.

Shortly after the group checks into a motel, Kit tells the girls that she heard a rumour about Ben, commenting that he had recently been released from jail, after killing someone. The girls then spend most of the journey feeling uneasy around him, until they confront him. Ben reveals that he in fact was in jail - for driving his step-sister across state borders without parental consent, after his father was abusing her. Having established that Ben was not the assassin they imagined him to be, Lucy and Ben grow closer. The girls talk properly to each other for the first time since they were kids. Lucy reveals that her mother abandoned her and her father when she was three. Kit, who was overweight as a child, has an overbearing mother who sent her to "fat camp" but now cannot stand that her daughter is more beautiful than her. Mimi reveals that the baby's father was not her boyfriend, but a guy who raped her after she got drunk at a party.

After they arrive in Arizona, Lucy finally meets her mother Caroline (Kim Cattrall) after eighteen years. However, Caroline reveals that she married again, and that she now has two sons. She reveals to Lucy that she never wanted to have her, and that she was a mistake. Lucy leaves the house and starts to cry in a motel bathroom, while Ben comforts her. The following day, Lucy rejoins the others and goes on to Los Angeles. When they arrive, Kit brings Mimi along to surprise her fiance, Dylan (Richard Voll). However, it is revealed that Dylan is betraying Kit, after they see another girl in his apartment. Already upset, Kit suddenly realizes that it was Dylan who raped Mimi and got her pregnant, and she punches him. Scared, Mimi runs away. However, she falls down the stairs and, consequently, loses her baby. While alone in the hotel, Lucy has sex with Ben for the first time. Lucy and Ben fall in love, and against her father's wishes, she stays in Los Angeles and goes to the audition instead of Mimi, receiving a standing ovation at the end.