The Spice Girls (Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, Geraldine Halliwell, and Victoria Adams) star as themselves, while Richard E. Grant, George Wendt, Mark McKinney, and Alan Cumming argue about the making of a fictionalized feature the group will star in (in some sense, the movie we’re seeing) and a documentary about them (in another sense, also the movie we’re seeing). Groping for the childlike pace and attitude of The Monkees, this 1997 feature tries to make the Spice Girls appear as self-aware as they are phony—to render charming the fact that their personas are contrived—and pleads for sympathy for the group in their predicament as megastars. Their busy tour schedule leaves no time for private lives, and any men they meet are just intimidated by them. A pregnant friend who wants them to be godmothers is meant to represent their estrangement from social and family lives—at one point they must choose whether to remain with her in the delivery room or give a sold-out performance at Albert Hall. But the device just draws attention to the fact that the group’s appeal is based on something antithetical to their maternal instincts. A promotional tool that establishes its superfluousness simply by existing, this clumsy, smirking movie has a bitter soul. Written by Kim Fuller; directed by Bob Spiers.