Britney Lost Her Phone Film Review

Star rating: 4/5

Writer: Alex Volz

Director: Vito Trabucco

Starring: Jessica Sonneborn, Vincent Cusimano, Hilary Powers, and Bemjamin Kauffman.

A quirky, funny, 'alternative' Western.

The year is 1820 and the setting is the Mojave Desert in the United States, where a family of 5 (soon to be 6) arrive in a bandwagon in search for a life in the West. Papa Youngman, Mama Youngman, their sons Jeb and Luke, and Jeb's wife Maggie as the classic white American homesteaders. As they arrive, they don't meet Indian communities or come face to face with wolves, although a rattle snake does make a consequential appearance. Instead, they come across a smartphone, called Britney.

This is the premise of this funny film. Britney Lost Her Phone is written in a punchy, irreverent tone reminiscent to a British viewer of Horrible Histories. Like the show, it poses really deep questions in an out of context sort of way that makes them all the sharper. What would survival in the tough dessert conditions have been like with access to Google, YouTube and Spotify?

Technically, the film's highlight of the film is that it takes place entirely outdoors, except for scenes inside the bandwagon, featuring breathtaking views of the North American wilderness. The really charismatic characters are brough to life by witty, committed performances. The actors pay cheeky homage to the larger-than-life approach of the Western genre. As many films in the genre, the score of the film adds to its character: an originally composed American-rock 'anthem'. Yet another cheeky homage something 'all-American', with a sound like Green Day's many hits. The opening features really evocative illustrations which serve really well to bring the viewer into the story from the start. 

The premise of a smartphone accessible to a family during the 'Manifest Destiny' days leads to questions deeply resonant today: problems of pure survival, and ultimate violence, against problems of fear, addiction and all- pervasive 'information'. Mama Youngman is convinced the smartphone Britney is the work of the devil: a false prophet full of lies (fake news, anyone?). In particular, the problem of addiction is portrayed particularly cleverly, as Jeb goes from fearing to becoming deeply dependent, and not for knowledge.

'Unfortunately, it only teaches you what you want to learn', says Jesus, a stranger who meets the Youngman family towards the end of the film. The definition of echo chambers and atomisation we are subjected to today. This alternative Western is smart and incisive in a funny and escapist sort of way.